"No TV Weeekend" Challenge

I promised myself not to turn on the TV this weekend. Sometimes I find myself glued to my TV chair zapping endlessly hoping to find something good to watch.

Here is what I have planned for the weekend:

Saturday:
-Catch up on PF blogs.
-Look at the contents of the fridge, salvage everything that may go bad in a few days.
-Work on the material required for the new venture (i.e. study at least 4 chapters and take notes)
-Do a load of laundry

Sunday:
-Go for a walk
-Study at least 2 more chapters and take notes)
-Back-up old files, clean-up the laptop and activate Skype again. (I dislike all kinds of instant messaging but this is the preferred type of communication of my new colleagues in the consultancy venture)

And there is a new book I started to read last night by my bedside. These should be plenty to keep me occupied.

Business Card Collection!

For how long does a sane person keep old business cards? In my case, it was forever!...Until yesterday.

Now that I need to do some networking, I went through more than 1500 cards collected from suppliers, colleagues, customers and friends since 1997! You could actually follw certain people's careers: Salesperson at XYZ Inc., Sales Manager at XYZ Inc., Director of Sales at PQR Inc., etc. etc...I kept about 50 or so. I know I still have a bunch dating back to 1988. Thank God, I will not have to look through them.

In the process, I also saved some notebooks which were barely used. I threw out the used pages and they are like brand new. Waste not, want not! I probably have enough notepads, notebooks, post-its and a variety of office supplies to last me at least ten years. No kidding!

Testing the Waters for a Freelance Life

For the last few years, I had been contemplating about a second move in my career. I am 43 and would like to work at least until 60. However after 45-47, I think one should be able to work in a different pace. For me, this may be possible by doing consulting work and training.

To be honest, I am scared. I think, I still need to have a full-time job till I am 47-48 so that I can continue saving money. Right now, I am living on my savings while looking for a new job. I hope, my job quest will end latest by the end of the year but there are no opportunities at the moment. (Gotta think positive, think positive!)

Meanwhile, as I have mentioned in my previous post, there is an opportunity to become a certified trainer late October, early November. Until then my friend, his partners and I will be trying to find clients for our business. Although, we cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel yet, I am glad that I have something to do and feel like I am working. You can read only so many blogs and books while at home. I hate not having a job not just because of the negative cash flow but rather the inactivity and laziness.

OK. I need to go now and work on a list of possible clients and do some research on freelance life. Any suggestions are welcome (although since this is a new blog and that I have not advertised it's existence, I am not sure how many readers there may be out there in the blogosphere).

Hiatus is over...

I had frozen this blog of mine for a while. I have not been active on my other blogs as well. I guess summer laziness had set in.

Since my last post, a few things happened.

I went to Cesme, Izmir for a short vacation. The beaches were incredible and I just stayed in the water for as long as I could. Must have been a marine creature in a past life.

I bought a used car from a relative. It is chugging along and taking me to the places I need to be. Gas is expensive in Turkey fluctuating between 7-8 USD/gallon. The car I bought is a 2000 Civic with an automatic transmission. So, it is not very economical but the buying price was right and I am not using the car every day.

I have also started to think about a freelance career in training and consulting. I am still looking for a regular job while I am playing with this idea and actually doing some work on it. If I cannot find a DECENT job in the near future, this is my fall back plan. This type of work was in my plans for after 2015 or so but an opportunity just presented itself and I see no reason why not to grab it. It is very difficult to get your first job as a trainer. So, this one will be my test bed.

I will soon be attending two trainings abroad for my certification. I will incur the flight, accomodation and misc. expenses myself. I will not pay for the classes which are not cheap. My investment will be my time and expenses of my trip.

I will make sure to post about the costs associated with this trip and my money saving tactics.

Although this summer was much cooler than usual, I did not play tourist in Istanbul after my visit to the Museum at all. One gets lazy when at home. The apartment sucks you in and you do not want to do much at all. Days have gone by without doing much of anything but reading.