Ryan T. Collier Photography

That about sums it up folks. Between school, a new business venture, more school, and my regular weekday job that has been keeping me at work late at night and on the weekends, I am running on all 18 cylinders! 🙂

These past two weeks have been about the busiest that I’ve had for about the last 4 years. Even the week where Keziah and I got married weren’t as hectic!

Alas, this great storm surge is passing, and I’m starting to see a break in the clouds. I’m closing in on finishing up all my writing assignments for school, which will put me about 1-2 weeks ahead. I’m planning on using that time to my advantage as I have another new project that I’m beginning. I know – me and my projects. Seems like I have at least 6 of them up in the air already! 🙂

On the positive side, I’m definitely honing my time management skills! 🙂 This is the main reason my posts have lapsed; I simply have moved my blogging to a lessor priority, in favour of working ahead in my online studies.

I hope to catch up over the next few weeks though. 🙂

Cheers!!

Only because I want to get to bed. A good friend of mine will be appearing on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” on Monday, February 18. Check your local listings for times. She’s had to keep mum for the last few months, so it will be a relief once the cat’s out of the bag. Not… that I’m comparing her to a cat… or a bag.

Feeling good, but tired. I received my evaluation for my last BUS104 paper, an “A.” Boo-yaa. And, tonight I finished making my new uncle Ty’s DVD that I’ll be sending out to him tomorrow. Sorry Ty for taking so long.

And finally, check out another good friend of mine’s documentary on China. It’s worth every second that you take to watch it. I had the pleasure of working on the compression for web delivery, and really think the video is superb. Well done -O-.

I’ve got a reprieve from school during “SpRiNg BrEaK” that I’m going to use to work ahead. 🙂 This will hopefully allow me to focus on the marketing of my photography venture. Which, by the way, if you have referrals send them my way. 😀

Well, as I predicted a few months back, Apple yesterday upped the capacity of its iPhone to 16GB. And, now I’m in the quandary to figure out if I should ditch Verizon and move to AT&T or continue to wait a little longer for another more beefy feature update or to just stick with Verizon and move over to a BlackBerry.

As an Apple shareholder, I feel somewhat compelled to stay in my own camp, rather than help out RIM, but the Apple / AT&T deal really isn’t helping me out any.

Damn.

If I felt confident that I could hack the iPhone and have it work reliably, I’d pony up the $500 and head over to the Apple store to snag an iPhone up tomorrow!

There’s an RIT student who successfully hacked his iPhone to work on T-Mobile’s network – which, while ultimately quite fascinating, doesn’t really help me out of this little pile of dookie I’m in now, does it?

In the meantime, I finished another school assignment tonight, which leaves me with just one more BUS110 assignment and another BUS104 assignment that I need to wrap up before this Sunday.

Tomorrow after work, Keziah and I are going to see “Juno” at the Little Theatre – a night out that is most welcome after weeks of nothing but work, work, school, and more work and school. 🙂

Tomorrow is also our 4-month wedding anniversary!! Wahoo!! 😀

I met up with a few of my BUS-104 classmates at Spot coffee this afternoon so we could get to know each other. It was a great chance to see the faces of the folks we chat with online during our Intro to Business course.

It was the first time I’d been to Spot coffee in over a year. Actually, I think the last time I was at Spot was on a date with Keziah! My favourite drink, the Coco-Moco, was as delectable as I remembered. 🙂

After the quick meet up, I rushed home to tend to Keziah’s bunk foot and an overall relaxing evening by the fire with her.

Having enough time to blog seems like a luxury these days; I’m not growing tired of blogging, but it’s definitely a challenge to keep up with. Well worth it though. One of my goals is to maximize my site for search engines so it’s ranked at the top of search results! Try a search for “ryan collier” on google.com and see where this site comes up. And, hey when you do, submit a comment and let me know! 😀

My wife, Keziah, and I had to get up early at 6am today as she was having surgery to remove bunions. Now, I should preface this entry by letting you all know that we are avid Scrubs fans – we watch the show in syndication every night on TBS. Ok, consider yourselves prefaced.

Now, no trip to a medical facility can be without incident, right? And, living in upstate New York, no winter can be without its usual compliment of fun and interesting weather. This morning lived up to full expectations and greeted us with a nice mixture of sleet, rain, snow, and freezing rain. Oh, and a kiss of minty freshness.

To make a long story short, what should have taken all of 15 minutes took roughly three times the amount of time. But, at least we weren’t alone, apparently some of the nurses where having similar difficulties getting in as well. In any event, we arrived and in one piece, ironic as Keziah was about to be sliced into little pieces anyway. Ok, I’ve taken some liberties with that statement, but I think you get the humour.

Check in was effortless, many props to the Westfall Surgery Center, LLP, as its entrance so glamorously displays. (As an aside, I’ve always wondered what LLP meant, thanks to my business class studies Ive learned it stands for Limited Liability Practice, as is used by lawyers, doctors, etc. anyone in a profession who starts up their own business. See, you’ve just learned something new :D)

Waiting during surgery is probably the most awkward time you’ll ever spend among other individuals. We’re all there in the same utilitarian room. Everyone’s watching the same show on TV, and we all want to turn it to something else but no one ever does. Some people sleep. Some eat snacks. Some read. But, inevitably, were all waiting for the surgery to end so we can get the hell out of there.

Ironically, as I was typing that last sentence, the surgeon came to get me as Keziahs surgery was done! Great timing!

This will be a short post, as Lost is on tonight. I needn’t remind anyone of just how huge a Lost fan I am. I even started a lost flashbacks web site: http://www.lost-flashbacks.com/ with the intent of posting all of the characters’ flashbacks in chronological order.

I have yet to do it though. Sometimes it really bothers me, as it’s another hanging web site chad from a project that I started and never fully finished. But, I do intend to!! Promise!

My decision to put the Lost Flashbacks site on hold came as I realized I needed to focus on my studies and complete my degree program. Working on a web site wasn’t getting me any closer to achieving that. So, for now I’ll just enjoy the show and some day I’ll return to finishing the site. 😀

Here’s to an absolutely brilliant, original, and creative team that deserves every ounce of recognition for delivering what I believe is television’s best show.

Cheers mates! 🙂

1 more day until LOST. Check out the refresher video to get all caught up.

Thanks to mom for reminding me I’m a bit behind on my blog! That’s the kind of prodding that I need to get my behind in gear. 😀

For my entrepreneurial studies business class tonight, I had to participate in a discussion surrounding unethical business practices. For example, say a business owner reports they made $7,000 in their fiscal year, but in reality made twice that, in order to survive and stay in business. Is survival a reasonable excuse to commit tax fraud?

I like to think of creative ways to wrap the articles I write – I find them more interesting, and I hope my audience does too. So, mom’s timing was perfect in her e-mail to me this morning in that I included a shout out to momma in my discussion article. Check it out below.

Also tonight, in keeping with my pledge to get in touch with friends whom I haven’t talked with in a while, I spoke with my friend Samantha. Her and her fiancé are getting married in May – congrats to both of them!! 😀 Anyway, I chatted with Sam for over an hour! I think it’s great having friends that you can reconnect instantly even when you haven’t talked to them in over 8 months!! Those are the true friends that are few and far between – and I feel especially lucky to have a lot of really special friends like Sam. 😀

Oh, as a shout out to her, here’s a link to her web site “Sweetly Wrapped Favors.” Sam designs all the wrappers herself and she has a lot of fantastic and unique designs for weddings, birthdays, baby showers, pretty much anything you can imagine. I encourage you to check out her site!! 😀

I definitely feel some momentum happening with my über-secret project and I’m getting pretty jazzed about it!! Still more to come. I hope to make a lot of progress on my school work this weekend, which should free up some time next week to map out my plans for the über-secret project. 🙂

Well, it’s 11:30pm. I’ve finished what I wanted to for the night; so, I’ll take advantage of a productive day and get some rest. Here’s the article I posted for my BUS-110 class. Enjoy!!

“REMEMBER MOMMA”

“Just because everyone else is doing it, doesn’t mean you should too.”

That simple question, posed to most of us during our childhood, can be easily applied to many businesses faced with ethical dilemmas.

Most entrepreneurs, and even large corporations, can try and rationalize their unethical actions, much like the self-employed artist example in the book.

But, the sole need for survival shouldn’t supplant honesty, reliability, or fairness. If the artist’s business would suffer by reporting accurate financials, then perhaps she should re-examine her business plan and investigate which part of the plan is faulty. Hiding behind a “cooked book” only delays the inevitable while tarnishing her brand and integrity.

Many reputable companies, including Xerox, have attained a tarnished reputation after it was discovered the companies were manipulating their financials. The short-term gains from these practices pale in comparison to the long-term losses, including loss of reputation. In many ways, a public company’s stock can trade in tangent with its reputation. Put that reputation in jeopardy and shareholders get jittery, selling off due to lack of faith in the decisions being made by corporate officers. But, a strong corporate ethical policy and adherence to that policy can foster strong employee moral and loyalty, ultimately leading to increased productivity, efficiency, and income.

Even though it may seem that everyone is participating in some form of unethical business practices, as entrepreneurs we should be independent thinkers and make ethical choices born from our own integrity. By taking a stand, we can diversify ourselves from the mainstream. We should become forward thinking business leaders, and in-the-present problem solvers as well. In the quest to fulfill long-term social responsibilities, let’s not succumb to short-term monetary gains at the loss of one of the most beneficial effects of integrity – trust.

Remember what momma told you, “Do unto others as you’d have done unto you.” And, “always make your bed.”

I’m trying to improve my time management skills even further, so when I had a moment to stop and write in from work I seized it!

Waking up this morning wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be, surprising as I had about 4 hours. Maybe that’s the magic number. I’ve stayed up past my bed time before, only getting 2 hours or a little more than 6 hours, and the effects have been a lot worse.

Overall, life is pretty good right now. Days are going by fast, and I’m feeling a little pressure to wrap up a few business class assignments before the weekend so I’m ahead of where I need to be.

Just gotta keep pluggin away!!

Well, it’s official.

I’m 3 days behind writing in my blog.

I hope to catch up in the next day or so!!

Lots going on, and lots to write home about. Stay tuned.

3:51am, off to bed. 😀