Has Anyone Seen a Man Fitting This Description?

I found this interesting take on our "hero".

Can anyone tell me what The Brimstone Society is? I understand that it has something to do with role playing games. Beyond that, I'm at a loss.

Musings on Overconfidence and Self-Employment

First, let me get the shameless plug out of the way. Go buy kick-ass t-shirts at Springheel Jack or by them at "friend prices" here. Women dig them!

The first 24-hours of having my business open have humbled me, quite frankly. In retrospect, I think it's impossible for one not to have inflated expectations when starting self-employment. One must be slightly out of touch with reality to fling oneself off the cliff of "steady employment" and believe he or she can fly. It takes delusions of grandeur to believe you can succeed at something that doesn't even exist yet. One must have big dreams to forge a new path, and big dreams can infect the mind and lead to unrealistic expectations. I learned yesterday that I was not immune.

Big dreams can also lead to pessimism. Everyone has good days and bad days. On bad days, the days when reality creeps in around the edges, it's hard to keep the dark thoughts away. I'll never make it. What was I thinking? I wonder if can still get a job at Starbuck's.

Bad days come without warning because they start like any other. They seem to break upon you like the flood waters overtaking a levee. All of a sudden, you're under water. You don't even know where the water came from. Your product is late or missing. Your vendor won't return your phone calls. You've made a very expensive gamble on a website and lost. You've just opened for business and no one has shown up.

For me, when the water is at my feet and I can't see the high ground, I think about the good days, the days that make it all worth it. I think about how I felt the day I saw my first shirts being made. I liken it to what a proud parent must feel like at the birth of their first child. Or, I think about the day when my tags came in the mail and I saw my logo in cloth for the very first time. That particular moment brought home and made real to me what I had been doing those past few months. My company was no longer theoretical; it was real because I had the proof in my hand.

The high points keep you going, certainly, but the low points, such as yesterday, serve their purpose too. They are the high watermarks you look back on and remind yourself that you survived; you lived to tell the tale. You think about the struggle and what it took to make it, and the success is all the sweeter for it.

Fortunately for me, I have friends who gently remind me of such things. They, who have battle scars and war stories of their own to share, remind me that many, who have dared to dream, stumbled and fell along the way and still managed to succeed. It is certainly so, and because of my friends, today is a good day.

Buy Shirts at Friend Prices

The shirts are now available for sale! But, because you fine folks have been so good to me, I am going to offer them to you at a discount price of $15. (That's over 15% off.)

Use the "add to cart" button below to buy the shirts.

Select the design and size you want and then click "add to cart". If you want to buy more than one shirt, click on the "continue shopping" button once you are directed to the PayPal site. By clicking the button, you will be brought back to this site, where you can select another design and size. Keep repeating that process until you have completed your order. Once you are ready to check out, click the "checkout" button on the PayPal site.

Note: If I can hand deliver the t-shirt to you (i.e., if you live in Florida), you don't have to pay shipping. Select the "shipping not required" option. However, if you require shipping, please select "shipping required" option. If you don't, I won't know where to send the shirt.

Design	TreesRabbitsOctopusChuck'dGeorgeVictoriaSGM (Tan/Brown)SGM (Silver/Asphalt)MDY (Black)MDY (White)
Size	Ladies' SmallLadies' MediumLadies' LargeLadies' X-LargeMen's SmallMen's MediumMen's LargeMen's X-Large

Masters of War

Worst President Ever.

2,000 people, my eye!

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul

And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead

-- Bob Dylan, from Masters of War

Christ on a Crutch!

I just got off the phone with the label people. The shirts were supposed to be done today. Actually, they should have been done two weeks ago, but that's another story. Now they tell me that the shirts will be done tommorrow after 2:00 PM. This won't delay my launch, but christ, can't anything happen on time?!?!

Errrr!

Poll Results: Medusa and Photos

Medusa Results:
White: 2
Black: 5
Green: 6

To be honest, I am surprised black did as well as it did. Can anyone explain it?

Photo Results:
Original: 2
Color Corrected: 0
Simplified: 0
Hip-ified: 4

Not surprising, but it's nice to have the warm-fuzzies of validation.

Countdown to Launch

I am told by the powers that be that I will finally have t-shirts available for sale on Wednesday, September 28th. They're about a month late, but better late than never, as they say.

For the launch, Kendra and I will probably go out to dinner and have a few drinks to mark the occassion. A lot of effort has gone into getting to this point, and the occassion should be celebrated.

With that said, I want to recognize your contributions to my success. Thank you for your efforts, insight and support these past three months. I litterally could not have done this without your help. Thank you so much!

You're all invited to the real celebration when Springheel Jack is profitable!

Poll Rules

Again, I am a big schmuck for having to do this after the fact, but I want to present the new rules regarding polls.

1. Polls will be open for 5 days from the time it was posted. For example, the medusa poll will be closed Friday as close to 2:56 PM as possible.
2. Once the poll is closed, the votes will be tallied and a winner will be declared.
3. Ties will be decided by me
4. Encouraging your friends to vote is encouraged
5. The more people who you convince to vote, the more sex luck that will come to you!

If you have not voted in the polls yet, what are you waiting for? This is how decisions get made, people! It's either this or we start using chicken bones again! So, please help me out - vote!

Are Hip-ified Photos Too Much or Just Enough?

Mostly because his professional eye was so irritated by their ghastly form, Kyle offered to color correct the product photos we shot for my website. Of course, I agreed.

"[P]artially out of boredom, partially out of wanting to make stuff cool," Kyle decided to play around a bit with the photos. Thus, I was given four versions to choose from.

Original

Corrected

Simplified

Hip-ified

Big thanks, Kyle!

Tell us what you think.

Which photos should I use for my website?
	Original: Keep it raw, fresh and unfiltered!
	Color corrected: You don't want to over do it
	Simplified: Simplicity is glorious
	Hip-ified: Is there any other choice?
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Old New Art Tuesday

This is one of the early color schemes for Medusa. I thought I would share because I don't have anything else new. Enjoy!

I Love the 80's Medusa

Dilemma

Which "shirt" color do you like best for Medusa?

White:

Black:

Grass:

And, of course, there is always "Other".

Which "shirt" color do you like best?
	White
	Black
	Grass
	Other?
Free polls from Pollhost.com

3, 2, 1...Blastoff!

launch (v.t.) 1. to hurl or send off, 2. to set a float, 3. to start.

According to my precise calculations, within the next 7 days, I should be ready to launch my website / company / financial quixotic adventure. This of course, begs the question: how should it be done?

No, I don't think christening my computer with a bottle of champagne is the way to go.

Seriously, you would think with all of the planning and stressing that I have done over this little enterprise that I would have thought about this in detail before now. But, the honest answer is that I've been more worried about having product to sell than selling product.

That's not to say that I haven't thought about marketing or advertising at all. I have. I believe I have a good plan as far as that goes. It's only on the specific question of how to launch that I haven't spent much time thinking.

I guess my plan was always to have a small launch, without much fanfare. But, as the date approaches, I feel as though this moment should be noted somehow. After all, a lot of work has gone it to getting here. It should be recognized, shouldn't it?

So, I pose the question to you: how should I launch the company? Assume a budget of $10.

New Jack Site-y

I am going to let you in on a little secret. I hate my website. I mean, I hate, hate, hate it. It sucks monkey balls. For the uninitiated, click here.

What do I hate about it? Well, let's start with the fact that it's boring. The site's not fun. It completely undercuts the fact that we're selling some kick-a## shirts. It screams amateur. It's also ugly, clunky, not just for the customer but the backend processes as well, and counter-intuitive to normal humans. And, the kicker is that I can't change it. Oh, I could make small changes, like to the background color or the link colors, but I can't make the wholesale changes I want.

So, what have I done about this? I have hired a friend of friend to design a new site. His name is Eric Rosson, and he's an amazing web designer. And, he's fast. In a single weekend, he's created me a comp of the new site. Take a look at the future of Springheel Jack.

It's only a comp, so the eventual site might be different, but you get the idea. It certainly doesn't suck.

More Hands

More Third Eye pics from Jason today. We decided we liked the black & white hand, so we are playing around with t-shirt colors and eye color.

Grey Rah

Blue Rah

Storm Rah

She Rah

Jason and the Return of New Art Tuesday

First things first: Jason weathered the storm and is doing fine. He recently had power restored, and from what he tells me, things are getting back to normal. I don't know the details of his ordeal, yet, but I hope to get them at some point.

In other news, Jason also sent me the latest versions of the third eye design. And, you know what they say about an eye in the hand. That's right, they say, "It's time for new Art Tuesday!"

So, we have two versions. One color and one with more minimalist color. Enjoy.



And, we also have new colored versions of the Champ and Medusa.
Champ The difference between these two versions is the yellow outline around the 2nd Champ.


Medusa Again, the difference between these two is the outline surrounding the 2nd Medusa.


Thoughts?