Ladies and gentlemen, drum roll please…. LostInSunshine.com!

It’s a brainchild of the writer/director Jentri Chancey and producer Lorie Marsh.  And kudos also go to the web designer Shad Chancey, who did the graphic design for the site.

I am very grateful to be involved in this project for many reasons.  I think what the filmmakers are trying to do with this web site is very forward-thinking — I mean, grassroots DIY thing has been done among bloggers, authors and musicians.  Filmmakers have done it, too — but most of the cases so far have been unintentional successes.  They didn’t set out to market and sell their films that way.  But with LIS, they are totally going at it on their own, with the intention to create an online community around the film by using net-based tools.

I learned a ton from this project myself — I would never been motivated enough to really sit down and master Drupal (content management system) if I didn’t have to, but now that I’m neck deep into it, I’m amazed by Drupal’s sheer power and flexibility.

Launching a web site is always a proud moment, but I’m particularly proud of this one.

All that being said — I was thinking tonight about how proud I feel of my latest web creation, but I also imagined how I’d feel if I was releasing a new CD, and if it was selling…..

I’d be way up on cloud nine then.

You see, I love making web sites, and I love the fact that I am in demand, my peers respect me and I get paid handsomely for it.  It’s hard not to like something you’re good at.

But it’s even better, if you become good at something you love.

That’s the ideal, that’s what we should all aspire to do.  You make yourself learn and grow, because you love it.

And that’s what I want to do.  I’m not yet as developed as a musician as I am a web developer.  But I still am more musician than web developer.

And that’s OK.  I’m making what I love grow, too.  It’s just taking a bit longer, because it’s bigger.

Anyway, I was IMing with its producer Lorie Marsh and enjoying our collaboration.  Then I thought, “gee, won’t it be great if someone demanded me to work on my own music?”

I envy who ever gets to work with Lorie the producer.  She is the person who makes a business out of a film, by finding investors, building web sites, and promoting the films once they are done.  In the music circles that person would probably be called a manager.

But really, the biggest hurdle for me, and for many other musicians, is the fact that while we may have fans, nobody is demanding, nobody is holding us accountable to work on our own stuff.  I’m great with deadlines, so when someone tells me “this gotta be done by this day” I get it done.

I guess I’m not as disciplined as I can be, but that’s not the whole picture.  The collaboration that happens between a client and service provider is different from, say, between band members.  There’s certain tension and boundaries here that keeps us on our toes.

Don’t get me wrong, I am making progress on my own stuff.  But I dream of finding a Produer or a Manager for my own stuff one day — someone who can make a business out of it and demands me to produce.

Then I’ll be real productive.

• Resetting PRAM
• Holding down option key when powering up (startup chooser)
• Holding down shift key when powering up (safe startup)
• Booting from a Mac OS X install disc and running disk utility (can’t find the hard drive)
• Running fsck (comand-line disk utility tool) from the terminal loaded from the install disc

So I went out to a local Best Buy and bought a Seagate 250GB 2.5″ SATA hard drive.  It says that it’s compatible with MacBook on the box, which gave me comfort.

One more hurdle:  replacing the MacBook’s hard drive requires a Torx screwdriver (it’s like a 6-prong star shape) of size T8 (which is pretty small).  I had never seen that before, so a trip to Ace Hardware and $16 was required to remedy that.

Fortunately, I had finally upgraded to Mac OS X Leopard a few months ago — so Time Machine backup had been kept.  I couldn’t restore the backup without installing OS first, but upon getting the OS loaded, it gave me an option to restore a Time Machine backup.

And restore, it did — pretty much every setting on my machine was restored, everything from FireFox extensions to Dock settings.  Phew!

There were some glitches, though.  Config files for the Apache web server included in Mac OS weren’t saved, so I had to rebuild those.  If you are a web developer using a Mac, I recommend you manually backup those httpd.conf files.

All in all, it took one work day and about $100 to recover from a hard drive failure.  It’s not bad, it could have been a lot worse….

I am certain that this is not an indication of how my year is going to go!  ;-)

• To write, record and release 4 songs,
• To revamp AriKoinuma.com so that it better establishes myself as a recording artist/Renaissance man,
• To blog here at AK.com on music, life and web,
• To set up an e-mail list and start building a community of like-minded people.

Now, I realize that 4 songs isn’t much.  I really can’t expect it to really further my career — but still, that’s a realistic estimate of my work load right now.  I have to do things within my means, however small steps they may be.

And here are other items on my to-do list for this year:

• Spend $100 per quarter on Jango.com AirPlay program so new listeners are exposed to my music,
• Continue working on my current big film web site project, LostInSunshine.com, and learn more about Drupal,
• Compose music for Lost in Sunshine when it’s ready for score,
• Think of a new way to network/meet new people on a consistent basis
• Continue to work out at a gym twice a week
• Try yoga
• Continue to practice my guitar for 30 minutes every work day

And on a wish list:

• Attend one music conference
• Sell some CDs
• Pay off my debt
• Get financially ready to buy a house

My Vision for 2010

At the end of 2010, this is how I envision my life:

I am still be working at my current mostly-telecommuting job, and mainly working out of my rented studio.  I have released 4 songs that I am immensely proud of, and listeners at Jango and my blog visitors are responding enthusiastically.  I have 150-200 names on my e-mail list and people are starting to participate in my career by  commenting on my blog entries and contacting me about my songs.  I feel very hopeful and excited that I can keep building on this, and in the near future put a band together to start playing live.

Lost In Sunshine is in finishing stages by then and I will be proud of the work I do on that film, with everyone involved in it ecstatic about it.  At the same time, Lost In Sunshine web site is also becoming known as a well-executed community building for an indie film.

As the result of my consistent efforts at exercising (physical and guitar), I will be feeling great about my body and how I look.  And my guitar chops are finally such that I can pull out more of what I hear in my head.

My own web site looks great and is getting well-visited.  I keep getting inquiries about building more web sites.  My experience at my current job and building of LIS.com helps me feel secure that even if I were to be on a job hunt again, I have marketable skills to land more excellent telecommuting jobs.

My community of friends and collaborators are expanding and I meet with them and with new people on a regular basis.  It feels great to be surrounded by such nice and talented people!

–

There you have it.  My vision for 2010.  Let’s see how it turns out.

Whenever you push anything live, you have to assume that something’s going to go wrong.

So then, when is the worst time to launch?  At the end of a work day, after your brain’s been well-cooked.

First thing in the morning is better, though for those of us slow starters, I’d say around 1 hour after the start may be the best.  You’re warmed up then, and ready to go.