I can’t say it’s finished, but we’re well on our way now. Big thanks to Jared for his help with cross-browser compatibility. Jared was blogging before there were blogs, back when everything was IE4 HTML and comments were in the guestbook. This is definitely the first site I’ve done that looks better in Firefox than it does in Internet Explorer.

I haven’t really blogged (or had much of a web presence at all, for that matter) for quite a while, but a lot has changed. We’ll probably see some cosmetic and functional changes around here as I work on things. Your patience is, of course, appreciated as I work to get things rolling.

I’ve become a big fan of the “get it out there and tweak it” mentality as of late. In the past I’ve developed ideas for the web on a long dev cycle, with dozens of reworks and trying to be all things on launch day. In some cases, launch day never comes, because I’ve grown too tired and discouraged spending such an enormous amount of time on something with such little return. I’ve realized recently (yeah, I know, welcome to the party, right?) though that the internet has really become a place where it’s a lot more rewarding and indeed a lot simpler to just launch something barebones. It’s a place where you can try an idea cheaply; proof of concept doesn’t cost much around here.

In June, I bought my first place. I had family living with me for some time, but I’m now on my own. I’ve always managed my money carefully, and personal finance has always been an interest of mine. It’s become apparent though just how important those skills are in the last several months. You can only do so much with so much though. I’m happy with work, but buying a house a little before I initially planned to did take away a bit of my buffer zone. The percentage of what I make that is already spoken for, while managable, is higher than I’d like of course. I’ve also become a firm believer in income diversification. If you can’t decrease your expenses below a certain floor level, you just need to make more money.

Enter Brad Kelly Enterprises. I started BKE in July as an umbrella of sorts for all my side projects. You’ll hear me talk about BKE quite a bit I’m sure. I’ve had some success so far, and will likely detail that in the future. Suffice it to say though, that I enjoy what I’m doing and would like to do it all the time. As a quasi-serious goal, I’d like to be making enough through BKE by the end of 2008 that working my office job becomes optional.

Would I really quit a great job to do this all the time? I’ll cross the bridge when I come to it. I think a goal like that’s necessary though. Without it, generating additional income streams becomes just another project I can put on the shelf. I need a deadline to get my butt in gear! Regardless of what happens, this blog will document my progress between now and then.