The Fight For A Sign

So lately I have been thinking about the Cubs. I know, I know, the Super Bowl is only a week away and here I am thinking about baseball. Well.. there is a good reason. As a person who basically grew up in Chicago and who now lives in a suburb only about 30 minutes away from that great city, I get all the news about the Cubs pretty easily. As a matter of fact, when the team is owned (partly) by the company that publishes one of the two major newspapers in the city it is hard not to hear about things that happen with the team.

Now before you argue that the Tribune Company no longer owns the team let me say this. Yes, they do not "own" the Cubs but they borrowed money to the Rickets family to help them purchase the team so in a way they are still associated with the team and in my opinion still have somewhat of a say. Now, moving on.

Money is in the air

For years the Cubs have been a team struggling for some sort of athletic identity. They have been the proverbial wait until next year team. They have even been called the "loveable losers". Not because they are a winning team mind you, but because even though they can't seem to win anything they still average crowds at the stadium that most teams envy. In part this love affair that fans have with the team is due to the city the team calls home. Well, not the city exactly but the neighborhood.

Wrigleyville as it is called is basically the area surrounding the stadium and it is filled with bars and is essentially sort of an extension of the ballpark.In addition to this you have the buildings that are directly across the street from the ballpark to its rear. Years ago these building owners took advantage of the fact that they had a good vantage point and built bleachers on the rooftops to allow fans to watch the game from them. They started charging fees and over the years have made a pretty good living charging for space that would have otherwise been unused.

The Cubs ignored this for the most part because they saw it as a way for fans to enjoy the game while giving the team a feature that is unique to an already pretty unique ballpark. The history of the team and the park itself is steeped in stories of greatness and of players long gone. Even the great Chicago Bears used to call the stadium home before Soldier Field was constructed. So it is safe to safe that Wrigley Field is definitely a one of a kind place. Some even call it the biggest bar in Chicago.

Flash forward a few years to today. The team is owned by a rich family that has plans to remake the park into a more modern venue that can get money from more than just baseball. In all actuality the plans they have come up with are not that bad at all. They will keep the ballpark whole and will not take away from anything that has helped it become a treasure to baseball fans and historians alike. At the same time they will add to the surrounding area and make it look a bit less like an old building in the middle of an old neighborhood.

Big surprise, the people who live in the neighborhood do not like it and they are fighting ever aspect of the changes. Not because it will take away from the way the area looks and not because it will demolish buildings to make way for new ones. No, they are fighting this because a new sign and a video board, both to be part of the stadium itself, block the view from the rooftops.

Making A Claim Where None Exists 

For years and years the rooftop owners had made money where they would have normally made none. For years they have reaped the benefit of a team existing in their backyard and the fact that the ballpark they played in was built the way that it was. Now, as new owners come in and decide they want to build an addition to that ballpark the rooftop owners, who actually have a union or group of some kind, are upset that they will lose revenue because the Rickets family want to add a sign to their ballpark.

I could maybe see these guys getting upset if the construction of the sign was going to cause one of their buildings to have to be demolished. Or maybe the sign had big speakers on it that would broadcast audio advertisements so loud that you could hear them while inside one of the buildings. But no. None of these things is the case. As a matter of fact, the Rickets family has even tried to work with the rooftop owners to help them retain some of the revenue they make, even though they really did not need to.

If you ask me, and I know you didn't, but the rooftop owners are being selfish. They are acting like the kid in the sandbox who takes another kids trucks and starts playing with them. Then when the kid who owns the trucks says he has to leave, the thieving kid says, "no, I'm not done playing yet". Which reminds me, I should be careful because I just read today in the Tribune that the rooftop owners are suing a business sports consultant over comments he had made in a Sun Times article last year. He had said that the rooftop owners are "thieves" because they are "stealing the Cubs product for their own profit". He is absolutely correct. For the rooftop owners to sue him over a comment is just a taste of how they are playing this game.

It is sad to think that someone who has been lucky enough to have what the rooftop owners have would turn into an ugly green monster because someone else wants to make more money with their own product. The Rickets own the team and the stadium and if they choose to make changes to those products they should have every right to. They have followed the rules of the city and obtained all the proper permits and have all their "ducks in a row". All that remains if for them to somehow please a group of jackals that have their hands out looking for freebies. It is sad, because everyone else has to work for their money. These people just expect it.

Leaving Elance? You Are Not Alone!

Taking a cue from a fellow writer, I am moving my "assets" and for the most part my time from Elance. Over the course of a year I have spent a good deal of time on the website looking for work. Being a freelance writer or actually a freelance anything is not easy. It essentially means that you do not have a place to call home as far as work is concerned. For me, and I suspect many others, Elance was supposed to be just that. Unfortunately it did not turn out to be what it promised to be.

The Promise 

The Internet is a sea of potential. It does not matter what your business is or what industry you work in. If there is something that you need done, need to sell, find out how to make, or just want to find, chances are you will get what you are looking for on the net. So it is no surprise that people from everywhere look to the Internet to solve their queries, whatever they may be. I was, I am no different.

I have been on the Internet since before the Internet was. I used to run a BBS (Bulletin Board System) with a chain of computers that users would call with their computers using a modem. We would trade files, data, and games along with online games and message boards to keep entertained. Of course, this is nothing compared to what the Internet eventually became, but still. Point is, I have been here a while. So when I first came to Elance I did not expect too much. I was cautious at first because I was not about to get my hopes up just to see them deflated before my eyes.

At the time I was just about 6 months or a little more in to actually selling my writing. Although I have been doing it in varying capacities for a while I was not actively marketing myself or my work yet. I thought Elance could be the answer. At least that is what I was lead to believe by their advertisements and what I am now starting to think were phony testimonials. In the end, I put a decent amount of time and effort into Elance. I searched for jobs that suited me and my skills and bid on those jobs knowing that nothing is guaranteed.

All in all I landed a couple jobs but nothing that would have been worth the time and effort used. The few jobs that I did get paid much lower than what the going rate was for that type of work. In addition, the jobs that were being peddled at the time always seemed to be bigger and better than what they actually turned out to be. In other words the people doing the hiring were using flashy headlines and promises of more work to come just to get people on board for a small one-time job. It allowed them to basically get away with low-balling writers for quality work. The jobs that were honest about what they were just were not worth the time as they just your typical content-farm style of writing. Fluff pieces.

I was really disappointed by the time I came to my senses about what Elance really was. Even is all of the jobs being posted were great jobs that any writer would love to have, it is difficult for people to compete with the low wage labor that has somehow found its way into this industry as well. It can be compared to a company who outsources their work to another country because they are getting the work done at a fraction of what it used to cost them. People like me are losing out on jobs because people who call themselves writers from India, Portugal, Spain, and Pakistan are bidding for jobs at roughly 20% of what anybody else is. So if a job is (in reality) worth say $10 these people are bidding $2 for the job. How do you compete with that?

Where's the Quality?

This brings us to  the obvious question and one that I am sure is creeping into anyone's head who is reading this.  

"Surely if someone is offering to do a $10 job for $2 the quality will likely reflect the cheap cost. You get what you pay for right?"

This is exactly what I was thinking at first too. I figured there is no way that people bidding so low are keeping these jobs. There is no way they are producing the same quality work that I or someone else would. Generally that does end up to be the case. Over time, this ends up degrading the work place and the entire pool of jobs overall. Because of the lower quality of work people get they stop expecting quality from freelancers hired through the system. It is soon expected that the work will be poor, the "bar has effectively been lowered".

So It's Bye-Bye Elance!

I guess what this means is that I am back to square one. In essence this might be the better option. On the surface it looks like it will mean more work. I will have to market myself more and I will have to put some work into getting information to to prospective clients on a consistent basis when not working. That is the one thing that Elance and other sites like it provide, a forum.  They give people a place to meet and a place that helps to communicate your needs with the clients needs and match them up. When you are doing this on your own you do not have  the security of a website or a company behind you. Sometimes that could be a helpful thing.

I have always been on my own, it is just that now I will not have the Elance pool to find work in. That will be okay though because that pool has been saturated with poor quality work and tainted with sour freelancers working as cheap as possible in order to take work from the qualified writers that produce quality pieces. So just as always I will have my blog and then I will have my "Services Site" that details the various services I can provide. I pride myself on the variety of these services, hence the name: Diverse By Design.

Whether or not you choose to stay with Elance is up to you. Some people might find that it works for them, while others might just simply have different reasons for staying or going. Earlier in  this post I mentioned that by leaving Elance I am following the lead of a friend. He stopped using Elance for some of the same reasons but not all of them. Every one has different needs when it comes to using a site like that. So it really is up to you. If you can make it work for you and the jobs you get from the site are worth your time then great. I only wish that I could say the same. Good Luck!

All You Have to do is Show Up!

Sometimes the things that people choose to read or follow depends solely on what  they can relate to. Now on the surface this would seem like a pretty easy observation to make. It would seem that this is something that is a very easy thing to see. On the contrary, sometimes those that are directly in front of us are likely to be the hardest to see.

Either way, that is the point of this posting. The fact that most of what I write about here are things that are of interest to me and in connection.. you. The people who come here and visit this site do so because something has caught their interest. That is what I aim to do. Catch your interest. This may not be the most popular blog and it may not even be the most flashy. However, what this blog is, is a beacon of information. Information that centers around the interests of one person and those who follow him because they share the same interests.

So.. that brings me, err.. umm.. us rather, to the future of this site. I will continue to post things that I see in the news that is of interest to me and hopefully to you too. I read (actually I scour) various news sites daily. When I see something interesting I will post it here along with a short (or long) commentary of my own to go along with it. So if you are interested, even somewhat interested in the news of the day as it relates to technology, space, society, and a few other topics then keep checking back here. I will continue bringing the news that actually matters back here. If you are not here, you could miss it.

Sure you could look through all of these information sources yourself but that takes time. Why not let me do it and just filter out all of the garbage. That leaves you with only the good stuff. In addition, you will occasionally get one or two of my original stories and articles that get posted to this site. So trust me, there is plenty to read and do here, all you have to do is show up.

The One Thing Stopping Us

Someone asked me today what my biggest obstacle to writing is. I thought that was an interesting question. In a sense, we all have obstacles and for various reasons. Some of them are internal while yet others are external. We have people that might get in our way without even knowing they are and we have times where we can get in our own way. So what is it that blocks us all?

Obviously this is different for most people and depends largely on what you are trying to accomplish. For me, I am trying to write. I try to write stories and opinions. I will comment on things and sometimes try to illicit comments. However, when I am writing I think my biggest obstacle is what others have written before me.

Many times, expecially when I am writing fiction, I have a tendency to second guess myself. I guess most people would be able to relate to such a thing because it is easy to think that what we have created is not "good enough". But in my case it is that I have this overwhelming idea in my head that no matter what I am writing I must find a different topic because it has already been done. While this might not get in the way of other ambitious people, it does for me. Regardless of my ambition.

I just feel that sometimes the topic of my story is something that has been so done and overdone that I must find another. Although in most cases this is not true. That is one of the glorious things about writing or just telling a story in general. A story can be told over and over again and not be the same story twice. In addition, even if it is a story that has been told for a hundred years, what is stopping another from telling the same story? Nothing at all. A story being written or spoken is as unique the first time as it is the hundredth time. So why is it that I have such a hard time putting this into action when I am writing?

Crazy Canadians - Glad This Guy is the EX Defense Minister!

It is no surprise that there are some pretty crazy people in  the world. It should not be any surprise therefore that some of these people are the ones in charge of in many cases, pretty important offices. Scary thing is, these are the people who are making our laws, ruling on our court cases, and essentially running our lives. Here is an example of what I am talking about.

Canada's Ex-Defense Minister Says Aliens Would Give Earth Tech If We Were Less Warlike

http://www.popsci.com/article/science/canadas-ex-defense-minister-says-aliens-would-give-earth-tech-if-we-were-less?dom=tw&src=SOC

Now before you say it, yes the guy is from Canada. I know that down here, in the U.S. the running joke is that Canadians are a bit cooky. But, I think it is safe to say that this guy takes the cake and that at the same time he does not represent Canada as a whole.

 

New Imaging Sheds New Light on Exoplanets

There is a new imager that can take photos of the exoplanets that we are looking at. This brings a new viewpoint to the search for a second Earth. Space.com reports on the imager here.

 

While it may not provide images like you might imagine by reading the headline, this is still a huge step up from just having the Hubble data. Things continue to improve in this area of astronomy and as time goes on the sky is the limit.

Services Link Back up!

Okay. Now it has been a little while since I had a link to a subset of pages detailing the services that I offer. Yup, aside from just being your friendly neighborhood blog, Diverse By Design is also a business! In all seriousness it has been for a while. So.. if you find yourself in need of one of the listed services feel free to fill out the project form or just let me know via email. Either way we can get things rolling.

If you are not familiar with what I do or if you just want to see if there is anything that you might need done, click the link in the navbar above listed: DBD Services. It will take you to another site with a bit more information.

Thanks and talk soon!