Hi folks,

sorry for the long silence, but I’ve been chasing myself over the past couple of weeks and time seemed to be disappearing forever.

Thanks for all the positive feedback on my Obama pictures; my flickr account showed 30,000 clicks on those photos within just one week. Awesome! This made me reconsider the design of my own photosite (inthemoment.rule-twentynine.com). Back when I published it I just needed a quick and dirty solution; now I am considering a flash solution, but that will be somewhat of a long term project. But there are so many aspects to consider, I’ll have to give it more than just a casual thought.

On the job front, things begin to take shape. Since it’s official my contract will end July 31, I’ve been in the treadmills of bureaucracy to apply for unemployment benefit. Which is pretty crazy. As long as you are not unemployed, you can’t hand in the forms. But you are still required to show up for consultation. Last week, I almost exploded when the clerk there told me: “Well, if you are not unemployed yet, what are you doing here? You might just as well go and return once you are fired.” The thing is: they knew perfectly well I hadn’t received my letter of dismissal yet and scheduled the consultation anyway. I couldn’t help but letting them know that they had just cost me two hours of my working time (and I am payed by the hour). Now I have another meeting next week and hopefully I’ll have all the necessary documents by then.

Just a sidenote: it makes it perfectly clear that those people are far removed from reality. In their mindsets (which are perfectly adapted to the structure of a large, governmental organization) you have all the time in the world (because to them you must be out of job) and all the patience in the world (because you want something from them). To encounter people who are actually still working and get impatient when they appoint you for 8 am and they continue chatting in their cubicle until 8:10 am before finally inviting you in … *argh*

On the bright side, I have found a tax consultant who is qualified to sign off on my business plan. Long story short: when you are unemployed and you decide that you want to take the risk and become self-employed full time, you vanish from the unemployment statistics. For that, the government is eternally grateful…well, actually ‘eternally’ translates to ‘nine months’. And you receive an extra 300 Euros in addition to your unemployment benefit, which is meant to cover your insurance costs. In order to qualify for that ‘Gruenderzuschuss’ (founder subsidy), you need to create a business plan in which you detail what you want to do, how you plan on becoming profitable and then you have to put that all in numbers – for the next three years. So, that’s what I’ve been doing in the last week.

One of my colleagues is taking the same route, but he’s an experienced consultant and already has all the contacts and partners he needs to make a good start. I will be providing services to his new company as well as focussing more on my web design, so I am in good spirits. But since everything (the new website, the logo, a convincing company presentation for partners) had to be finished by today, the last four weeks have consisted mainly of 18 hour work days for me. I can’t even begin to tell ya how badly I need a vacation.

But after next week everything will be (hopefully) set in motion, handed in and signed off, so that I can finally start to concentrate on the really important stuff. Like translating the official FedCon DVD, so all you guys who don’t speak German can follow along to the English subtitles English can follow the German subtitles (but you won’t read this post anyway). I already have the Opening and Closing ceremonies as well as the costume contest here on two DVDs which wait to be finally inserted into my iMac’s DVD drive.

On that note, I will leave you to actually start the translation. Have a great weekend, a nice week and when I post next, I’ll hopefully have some amazing photos for you. From a location three-thousand kilometers away. Won’t tell which direction, though.

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