Given my tendency to flee for London at any available opportunity, you’ll not be surprised to learn I’m currently over for Future of Web Apps - I’m actually drafting this prior to leaving for registration and a dander around the expo floor before the conference itself starts tomorrow. Not sure where I or the other few bemuzed guys who showed up today got that impression, expo & conference starts tomorrow.

I’m particularly looking forward - as I imagine most people are - to hearing the keynote speakers Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook) and Kevin Rose (founder of Digg) - as well as the talks on entrepreneurship, cloud computing, interface design, technology & psychology, community development and social networking. So much as I’m typically unreliable at blogging when I say I will, I’ll attempt to write up my thoughts over the duration - all the same my Twitter should be pretty reliable source of personal commentary.

I’ve also set somewhat of a challenge for myself while I’m here. I’m attempting, before I leave London, to clear my current backlog of work - which currently consists of three half finished client projects and two new client sites - as well as drafting a backlog of blog entries for goodonpaper, making repairs to Mucho Danke and preparing for the relaunch, sending the TwoStep website live & having lineups confirmed as far as February and making headway on a few other personal projects. It’s a mammoth task on paper - but I’m here alone for the guts of a week (with the conference, after-parties and Diggnation taking up around two days) - and I think it can be done. The past couple of months have demanded a lot of my time sorting out problems that got in the way of my work. Free of those distractions here in London, I’m determined to catch up before I hop on a plane home Saturday evening.

This month has been nothing less than a nightmare. Between what has now escalated into a legal battle with our estate agent, broken laptops and lack of an internet connection for over a fortnight, I’ve been living almost day-to-day drenched in frustration and rage. Which, needless to say, has detained most sane daily activities - the most unfortunate of which was my Photo 366 project.

What to do now though? Rightly strike September off as a month not worth remembering and continue with optimism again tomorrow, or give up entirely knowing the gaping void of September missing from the “final” project will likely urk me too much to feel entirely accomplished?

For anyone who hasn’t been following the Digital Media Island blog, TechLudd has relocated to the originally proposed venue - Ten Square Hotel on Donegall Square South. So, needless to say, don’t go turning up to The Stiff Kitten.

You can also now register your attendance on the website as well as what you’re interested in talking to other people about. I don’t think I’ve ever publicly invited anyone to come speak to myself personally, but if you fancy a chat about web design, unconferencing or local music I’ll be more than happy to let you buy me a pint!

TechLudd Belfast
Wednesday 24th September, 7.30pm
Ten Square Hotel, 10 Donegall Sq South, Belfast (map)

Music promotion is something I spend very little time discussing on goodonpaper, but it’s actually something I’ve been doing longer than I’ve been freelancing.

Over 4 years ago I started a DJ night in Auntie Annies named Sputnik - which actually originated as a “launch party” for this blog. Over time, Sputnik evolved into a live music night - with a further 4 shows taking place before I became involved in other projects and it fell by the wayside. The idea always was to have five shows (paralleling the five Sputnik missions) before killing the club off regardless of its success - presumably either quelling a short lived desire to do some local promotion, or confirm it was something I was interested in pursuing more permanently. The fifth show never happened, but I have every intention of reviving Sputnik to complete the series before terminating it completely.

A year ago - after abusing a friendship with local promotion legend and all-round bastard Joe Dougan - I was asked to take care of TwoStep as he moved on to run events at the Stiff Kitten and launch Belsonic. TwoStep, in local music terms, is one of the bigger live music clubnights in Belfast - with consistently solid lineups showcasing the best in local music in a great venue - with decent money, rider and facilities for the bands.

The club will be three years old this month, which will also mark a year of me being involved in the promotion, booking and eventual takeover of TwoStep. To mark the occasion, as well as curating arguably one of the best bills the club has ever seen, we’re getting a massive cake made up and giving out “party bags” with limited edition Panama Kings and Colenso Parade CDs and all kinds of other goodies to the first 100 people through the door.

Panama Kings
Cashier No. 9
& Colenso Parade

Thursday 18th September
The Limelight, Belfast - 9.30pm - £5
http://twostepclub.com

And yes, my graphic designer thought it was hilarious to put LittleTapeDude in the vulnerable position of being in his “birthday suit” and having his wang out on the poster.

Five years ago I would have been 16, starting the first day of preparation for my A-Levels. The next five years would totally reshape my entire life - moving out, meeting my friends, meeting Sarah, going to university, joining Queens Radio, developing goodonpaper - every decision, chance, regret and experience that’s led me to where I am today. Even in the past 3 years, something profound seems to have come along every 6 months and totally changed everything - particularly my decision to drop university in favor of freelancing in web design - which I wouldn’t have seen coming a mile out 5 years ago.

However, in the name of all things meme, I’ve taken up Matt’s challenge to detail what I at least hope to do over the next few years, despite my lifes’ developments being principally determined by chance.

• Learn PHP, Ruby & Javascript. More in the short term this one, but I seem to have caught myself in an ever-deepening hole of Wordpress projects, only really editing PHP or writing basic functions. More CMS experience and a better understanding of the principle languages would be good.
• Develop my business. I’m already really pleased with how freelancing is going - but I’d like to continue to legitimize, expand, pitch for bigger contracts, offer more services - just continue to build upon what I’m already doing to really make it a guaranteed long-term enterprise.
• Don’t develop my business. My startup ideas, The Carbon Collective, Coworking, Mucho Danke and the associated podcast, promotion, blogging, photography and every other thing I end up getting involved in over the next few years - I’d like to find time to manage all my “side projects” without neglect.
• Move into property I own. Getting a bit ahead of myself here since I’m only moving into a new flat today, but by the time I’m 26 I would at least like to be seriously considering buying a house. This resolution may also have to factor in a potential change of city.
• Travel. We’ve already began chipping into our Europe plan with the trip to Prague earlier in the year, but there’s still a lot of ground to cover - Paris or Italy are being considered as the next move (after the food in Prague, we’d like somewhere with a little less … pickling) - just have to dedicate some savings to the cause as soon as those savings exist.

It wouldn’t be a meme if it wasn’t passed on - so, whats your five year plan?