My name is Kevin Whipps, and I’m a writer from Scottsdale, Arizona. I’ve been watching How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) since the beginning, and up until recently, it’s really been quite enjoyable to tune into every Monday night. Recently though, not so much. And it needs to change, or else I’m going to stop watching — and I don’t think I’m the only one thinking that.

Remember Lost? Of course you do, we all watched Lost in the beginning, and some even hung onto the end. Those that did had lots of still unanswered questions left in the lurch, as did viewers of Battlestar Galactica. This creates a frustration with the viewers because we sit there, watching, patiently waiting for the show to put down a question, then answer said question within a reasonable amount of time. The amount varies based on the show, but I can say now with confidence that seven seasons is way too long to know how Ted actually meets the mother of his children.

It’s not that we don’t enjoy the hijinks of Barney, Ted and the gang, but since the title isn’t How Five Friends Spend Time at a Bar we want the story to progress. We want clues dropped then responded to. We want closure, and there’s no reason you can’t give it to us and still give us another five years of quality programming.

Emotionally, we, the viewers, are spent. First we’re getting involved with Ted and his fantastically horrid love life, but now Barney has gone from being the lovable bachelor to a lovelorn puppy who is pining away for Robin — the same person, by the way, who’s supposed to marry a brunette newscaster as per the guideline set a few seasons back. As for Marshall and Lilly, well they’re married and expecting their first child, but because they live out in Long Island now, their involvement in the bar scene is becoming a bit of a stretch. Sure, at least Marshall is in the city every day for work, but is Lilly really making that commute to work at a school when she could do the same thing closer by? Doesn’t seem logical.

Mathematically, you’ve got a problem, too. The conversation with Ted’s children takes place in 2030, at least per the show, and those children are at least 14 years old, give or take. Assuming that’s the case, then one of them was born in 2016, so you’ve got four years at the most to make this thing happen. But in a reasonable world, Ted’s going to want to meet the girl, hang out for a bit and then have children. Does all that happen in a year? Maybe, but Ted’s not getting any younger, so this has to happen sometime soon.

These premises are just becoming such stretches that we’re losing interest. And when you dropped the “love” bullshit between Ted and Robin last episode, I turned off the TV and seriously considered pulling the show from my DVR. Against my better judgement, I watch again this week and at the end Marshall won’t let Lilly concede to the bet, saying “Not yet” in reference to Ted and Robin never working out. You could almost see the disdain on Jason Segel’s face as he spit out the lines, like even he thought it was a stupid idea to keep dragging this thing out. Stop it. Just, stop it.

So how do you fix it? Easy. Give us the girl.

Now we know she has a yellow umbrella, but at this point it’s been years since she lost the thing, so who knows if she cares that it’s missing. And we also know she was Rachel Bilson’s roommate, but that was so long ago that it’s not even a relevant clue. However you do it, we now need to meet her. Let’s make the connection and move the story forward, or else Ted is going to be 65 and looking for chicks at AARP meetings.

Once they do meet though, the story isn’t over. Now we know how he met the mother, but the story can transition. They can break up, get back together, fight, argue, get married — you know, the stuff that couples do. You’ve easily got another year’s worth of stories before the marriage, and for the end of season 8 or 9, that’s where you go. Or maybe to the birth of the kids. Whatever it is, you can draw this out. It works.

But right now, you’re just playing this game where you’re giving us enough to be able to wrap up the show quickly if it gets cancelled, but also not enough to really make any reasonable progress to move the story along. It’s like a seven year long game of “just the tip” — we want more, we’ve been patient, we’ve put in the work. Let us finish, for fuck’s sake.

I’ve been debating if this show has already jumped the shark, but if it hasn’t yet, it seems imminent. Before you go off riding Fonzie’s coattails into television history, consider rewarding those of us that have been watching since the beginning. We want our payoff. I know that if I don’t get it soon, I’m just going to bail on it faster than I did on Lost.

About two years ago, I got a wild hair up my ass and decided to buy a Lego Star Wars set because it looked fun and complicated. It was, and although I wasn’t really sure what to do with it when I was done, I found that the act of pushing together blocks was very relaxing, and a little bit cathartic. I’d sit there, blind to outside distractions and the world around me, and click the tiles together like I was 8 years old again. Since then, I’ve been looking for more and more challenging Lego projects (all in the Star Wars genre, naturally), and I’ve built some of the biggest and most complex sets available. There’s still one big hurdle to tackle, but since it’s 50 inches long, I have no idea where I’d put it. Maybe someday.

But the other day I decided that it was time to build another project. Time to lose myself in the world of minifigs and the Empire once again, just like I’ve done countless times before. I bought myself a pretty standard kit at around 480 pieces, sat myself out on the porch at our patio table and just started clicking. It didn’t take that long to build, but those few hours of quiet concentration were definitely worth the money I spent those little colored blocks.

Now I’ll never play with the toy, and it’s not going to do anything other than sit in my office and collect dust, but with each completed kit I get more and more into that mind like water state that I’ve been attempting to attain for years. Even though I’ve been pretty close (and gotten there in a few writing spells every now and then), taking a few moments every few weeks to get back to my roots seems like a good idea. Just a good way to get back to neutral, avoid the perils and pressures of the outside world and just be a kid again.

This weekend is going to be pretty stressful, and I know that I’m going to come out of it a bit more frazzled than usual. That’s why I think I’ll spend some time at the toy store to pick something out. Then I’ll sit down on Tuesday on my back patio, listen to nothing but the sounds of the outdoors, and get back to ground zero. I can’t wait.

But I didn’t see the car as a cool custom, I wanted it because I thought it would be cheap. My father would talk me out of it, telling me that it was “too old and it’ll break all the time,” which was true since I had no engine knowledge at all, much less any concept of how a carburetor worked. And yet, I was still a bit sad to see it go.

A few years later, Dad would talk to me about how I was building the wrong kind of cars. Back then I was constantly working on newer vehicles, usually purchased right off the dealership floor with car payments attached. He said, “Kevin, you should build older vehicles. They’ll always raise in value then, and you’ll get more of a sense of accomplishment in building them.” I laughed at his suggestion. I was 20 and I knew everything — build an older car? That’s just going to take more money. That’s dumb.

Today, all I want to do is build old cars. It took me about 15 years to finally take his advice, which makes me wonder what else I’ve been laughing off.

A few months back, my mother made the suggestion that I start writing mystery novels. “There’s a big fan base there. You can even create your own series if you want, and really rake in the dough. I’m telling you, this could be your big opportunity.” I laughed at her suggestion. I was 35 and I knew everything — write a mystery novel? That’s not what I do. That’s dumb.

I was thinking about this yesterday because after some changes in my life I suddenly have some free time to be able to work on projects that I previously couldn’t attend to. My mother’s suggestion came up and that’s when I remembered what my father had said when I was a kid, and how it took me 15 years to figure out that he was right. It was my birthday the other day, and I turned 36. Would it take until 51 for me to realize my mother was right?

Writing a novel is something I’ve wanted to do since I was a child, but I’ve also been simultaneously daunted by the task. Taking the leap into the great unknown is a scary proposition, and I’m not quite sure I’m ready for it yet. But there’s no better time than right now, when I have the time, ability and knowledge to make this happen without costing me anything more than my hours. And the potential reward at the end is so big that it’s definitely worth it.

That’s why today I started my second book. I’m shooting to get it done by the end of the year.

Wish me luck.

The application is iBooks Author, and it’s free from the Mac App Store, so that’s pretty cool in itself. Even though it’s designed to be used only for textbook creation, there’s a lot of “wink-wink, nudge-nudge” stuff going on with the app, in that we know we can make it do what we need it to do. But there’s this big hoopla going on about the licensing agreement included with the app, particularly this part right here:

Although I can pretend that 2011 wasn’t one of the most screwed up years in my life, it absolutely was one that I never want to go back to ever again. I’ve had a few of those in my lifetime: 1999 — I made a bad call and lost every friend I had, minus a guy in Pennsylvania and his dog, a pair I still have yet to meet in person. 2007 — The death of my sister, Kara, at just 27 years old. 2008 — When my wife was laid off for the first of three times, her grandmother passed from pancreatic cancer and our dog had to be put down. And then there’s 2011, the year in which my wife and I went into financial turmoil and finally came out of it better in the end.

In baseball terms, it’s called a transitional year; a period of time when a team isn’t expected to do very well, but the time is necessary for the team to contend the following season. After the hell that was 2010 (with the only bright point being the birth of our son), 2011 should be this last step before a kick ass 2012. That’s the hope, anyways.

So to prepare for this new year, I’ve been getting together a few projects that I’m pretty excited about. I talk about them over at Whipps Industries, but here’s the general concept: passive income.

I realized last year that although I could keep things status quo for myself and my family, there’s only so much time in the day and I tend to get burned out if I don’t give myself at least a little time off. And yet, I need to improve my income because at some point in the near future, we’re hoping to have another child, and if all things go well, my wife will stay home for part of that time as well. To do that, we need to make up her income, and although it’s not that substantial right now, it may be by the time the baby comes.

To make up that income, I need to create money when I’m not actively working. I attempted to do this in the past by selling prints of my work, but it turns out that I’m more focused on building my writing business than my photography, because I feel it’s a more lucrative option. That sounds weird to me even as I type it, but when you see the amount of outstanding invoices I have for my photography work, well you’d understand it too.

So what is this mystery project? I’m not going to let it all out yet, but I can say that I’ve been writing a book with my friend Marie Look, and we hope to have it done by sometime in the first quarter of 2012. We’re 22,000 words in so far, and I think that we’ve got an excellent start on this really fun project. Once that’s done, I have two other ideas in the works. One which involves a lot of capital, the other which is more of a time investment than anything.

These things will all start rolling together in 2012, and my hope is that by the time my company turns three in October, that the book will be out, project two will be in full swing and project three will at least be started.

If all things go according to plan, 2012 will be an awesome year.

Happy New Year.

The biggest example of this was my time at 944, a place made up of some very bright people, but it was all smoke and mirrors. I tell this story all the time, but it bears repeating.

When you walked into the front office of 944′s HQ in Scottsdale, it was hard not to be impressed. Smack dab in front was a water feature with a 944 topiary, which just screamed “we have money.” There was always a pretty (if not beautiful) receptionist up front, positioned behind a zebrawood desk and modern furniture that was so modern that it was uncomfortable to sit in. Oh, and the 944 cover with Paris Hilton was there as well, just in case you had any doubts of who they were and how important the magazine was. For sure, people were impressed when they walked in the door — I know I was.

But 944 was really just like that fancy water feature. At first glance, it really looked cool — lots of detail, fancy rocks and modern zebrawood surrounding the base — but if you took a closer look, it was all just a façade. The zebrawood was really a laminate, and if you peered around the left side of the base all of it was peeling off. The water feature rarely worked, often leaving hard water stains on the glass that were almost impossible to remove. And it leaked too (right onto a power outlet, I might add), making it dangerous to work in the area, or even just walk by. Oh, and the topiary wasn’t made of real bushes, although I suppose that wouldn’t make much sense since there was no light to keep them alive. Regardless, the water feature was a joke amongst us in the office, and later, among those who were cast off like so much discarded trash when the house of cards all fell apart.

Although I’m fortunate enough not to be in a situation that’s full of smoke and mirrors today, I will say that I come across these people all the time. They always want to baffle me with their bullshit, and sometimes I just want to believe them. But every time I do, I think back to that water feature and just take an extra moment to take in my surroundings and see if they’re really full of shit. Usually when I do that, I can see the curtain, and behind it is a little man working levers furiously.

But not everyone is aware of the difference between being a 1099 employee and a W-2′d one. As a 1099, I have no rights. I am, essentially, a hired gun chosen to do a job. I’m not entitled to health care, unemployment or any of the other benefits one would get with a W-2, and if I’m told that the office is closed on a particular day, I only get paid if it’s a part of my contract — assuming there is one.

My wife worked a 1099 job for a bit, and I have several friends who are working 1099 gigs right now. They’re asked to work overtime, push the limits and get things done, but there’s no upside for them. The only perk is getting a paycheck, and sometimes that doesn’t even come.

More and more businesses are choosing to go the 1099 route instead of hiring people full time because it saves them money. Healthcare costs are ridiculous in this country, and just by cutting that requirement, they’re saving a ton of cash. And in a cash-strapped economy, every bit helps.

On a similar note, there are many people nowadays who are asking (or expecting) me to work for free. Sometimes it’s implied, sometimes there’s a wink and a nod, and others it’s just right there in the paperwork. I’m promised exposure, pride, a place of honor among their company, or a golden statue of a basset hound, but they can’t pay me money. “You’ll get a lot of experience working here,” they say, and I translate that to, “We’re broke but we need this done.”

Now don’t get me wrong, there are things I will do for free. I’ll do a consultation with a client so I can understand what I need to do to meet their needs. I’ll do some extra work on a document just to make my life and theirs easier. There are a lot of things I’ll do for free, but there’s a reason: It’s not really free.

Let’s say I come in and do a consultation with a client, and I do it for free. If I get the job, I’m not going to bill the person for that consultation, because that’s not the way I operate. But I could gain a client out of it, so spending a few hours working for free to gain a potentially long term customer is well worth it. I could either bill them for my time at the beginning and risk pissing them off, or I can not bill them and make thousands over the course of our working relationship. I think that’s the right call.

Or, let’s say I put in some extra work to make my client happy, knowing that I won’t get paid. Well, by making the client happy, I’m ensuring that my work with them is secure, something which no freelancer can have enough of. If an extra 15 minutes of my time keeps them happy, then it’s worth it.

But what I won’t do for free is just work. No, I won’t write an article for free just because you’re a startup. And no, I won’t take pictures of your car so you can put it online, because that’s not what I do. And frankly, when someone asks me, I find it incredibly insulting. I think, “Would YOU work for free?” Of course not. So why should I?

Sometimes I’m corralled into working with someone who is working for free, and that’s the worst case scenario, because it’s never really free.

A long time ago, I worked at a magazine where money was a problem (as it tends to be with any print publication nowadays), and so they often solicited contributors to write for free. It was a popular enough book that people would do that, because they did want the exposure to further their career. When I would get the document, I would spend, on average, twice the amount of time to edit that piece to the correct specifications, because the person was working for free and was usually not very good. But my job was to make it good, so I had to put in the effort to tweak everything they did and make it publishable.

Another time at another publication, I assigned a writer an article. When they turned it in, not only was it not what I asked for, but I was told that it would take “at least three weeks” for them to fix it and make it what I had asked for in the first place. Instead of that, I put in four hours of my own time to make it work, and got it published.

In both scenarios, the person doing the work was free, but the cost to the company as a whole was not. I put in more time working on the “free” person’s articles just to make them work — time that I could’ve spent working on other things for the company. As a result, I’d often have to work late to make up time, thus costing them more money. Had they just paid the person to begin with, it would’ve cost less overall.

I love my job, and there are many days that I would work for free just because it makes me so happy. But I don’t, just like you don’t, because I have bills to pay, a family to feed and a roof to keep over our heads. So please, don’t ask me to work for you unless you intend on paying me, because it’s just downright insulting.

Bryce, the owner of the truck, wanted three things out of the project: He wanted to keep the stock bed floor, he wanted to lay the frame on the ground and keep his mammoth rear tires. Problem was, he could only have two out of those three things. If he wanted to keep the tires and stock bed floor, he wouldn’t lay on the frame. If he wanted to lay on the frame, he could keep the tires but not keep the stock bed floor. If he laid on the frame, he could keep the stock bed floor but he’d have to lose the tires. There just wasn’t a great compromise that stood out.

It doesn’t really matter if you understand any of the preceding paragraphs or not, because I get that it’s all technical jargon. However, the Bryce Conundrum is a fairly universal concept: You want three things, but only two of them can happen, and it doesn’t matter which two they are. I run into this problem all the time, and it doesn’t matter what business you’re in, or whether you’re a car guy or not. We can’t always have what we want, and sometimes we have to make a compromise.

The other day I ran into that situation with one of my clients, and I thought back to that day in the garage with Bryce and Chad, talking about the various options we had in front of us. In Bryce’s case, we ended up cutting the bed floor but keeping it as stock looking as possible, which became the best alternative for his situation. With the client though, we were stuck: there just was no easy compromise.

Unfortunately, it’s not always as easy as taking out a Sawzall and getting dirty. If only that was the case.

NO BUSINESS MODEL, YET: Build a big and happy user base now, figure out how to sustain the business later. That seems to be the business model of choice for many new startups. It was Twitter’s business model, it is Instagram’s, and it is Stamped’s as well.

A few years back, right around the time that Square was starting up, I interviewed Jack Dorsey, the founder of both Square and Twitter, for a magazine I was freelancing for at the time. I remember researching the project, thinking a lot about how and why someone would start a service like Twitter, when there is no way to monetize it. It just didn’t make sense. So I asked him just that: How do you start a company with no idea how you’re going to make money? His response struck me as very profound, and I wish I could find it right now to quote him verbatim, but here’s a paraphrased version:

“You do what you love and then you find a way to make it work.”

Simple, right? That answer really made me think, particularly at that moment as I was just a few months into my new business, my son was not yet born and I was very scared about the future. Would I make it? Was it possible to make that kind of money? Could I support my family on this work?

What Dorsey said made sense to me, and I’ve held that in high regard for the past few years, just keeping it in the back of my mind on those days when the money doesn’t seem to be moving right and the writing seems to be up and down. I think about that and remind myself that I love what I do, and that’s the important part. I’ll find a way to make it work.

I don’t know anything about the guys at Stamped. Hell, I don’t even know if they’re guys, and all I do know is that they’re another startup with an iPhone app. Maybe they’re a bunch of hippies with a dream, or corporate robots with ideas of striking it rich in the App market, I don’t know. But is it my place — or anyone else’s — to question their business plan? To judge them based on an idea that they came up with?

Maybe what they’re just doing what they love. I’m sure they’ll figure out what to do next.

First off, big fan. I currently own three Samsung TVs and a Samsung Fridge, and I just helped my parents buy a new Samsung LED TV too, and it’s super cool. Frankly, there aren’t too many companies out there that I trust for big purchases like that anymore, and you’re one of them. And up until recently, I was planning on buying a new Samsung TV for my office, a purely trivial purchase that I wanted to make just in time for baseball season. But now … well now I’m not so sure.

See, I trust Samsung products to work and work well, and that’s why I buy them. But I also trust Apple products, and I enjoy using them. In fact, I’m typing this post on an Apple MacBook Air connected to an Apple display, and I’ve got another Apple computer behind me. Frankly, the two big brands in this house are Apple and Samsung, which have worked in harmony pretty well so far.

But your latest commercial — the one for the Samsung Galaxy SII (video here) — well, it makes you guys look like a bunch of dicks.

I’m one of those guys who waits in line for new Apple products, and I do so for a few different reasons:

1. They have a well-established infrastructure which I’m heavily invested in.
2. The products are well designed.
3. Each item speaks volumes about the quality and workmanship involved in putting them together.
4. They’re easy to use.

With the exception of No. 1, I could use those terms to describe Samsung products as well. My LED TV isn’t the top of the line model, but it still puts out a gorgeous picture, was simple to mount, is designed well, easy to use and appears to be put together well. I feel like I’m holding a quality piece every time I touch the TV, and that’s why I paid more for it than the competition.

If I’m an Apple guy for most stuff, and a Samsung guy for the rest, how do you think it makes me feel to be called a sheep? To be told I’m a loser because I wait in line for the latest iPhone when the competition has something else out there?

It makes me feel like never buying another Samsung product again, that’s how it makes me feel.

Samsung and Apple consumers are the same people. We buy both because we want that kind of quality in our merchandise; the kind of stuff we’ll keep for years, or until a newer and better thing comes along. Why would you try to separate us like that? Why can’t we coexist in harmony?

When comparing statistics, I can see why you would think that your new smartphone is better than the iPhone, but it just isn’t. I’m not going to reinvest my cash into anything Android, because I can never trust where it’s going to end up. What App Store do I use? Amazon? Google? Some other one? I’m not that guy. And a bigger screen? Look, it’s more important to me that my phone fit in my pocket than being able to watch movies on a big screen the one or two times a month that I do so. Just going by stats isn’t going to help you here; you need to start from the ground up and make it awesome.

And if you did that, I would have considered switching sides to your product because it was better than what Apple has. But after I saw that commercial, I realized that you really don’t care about those of us who choose Samsung over the competition for our goods, we’re just Apple sheep. Sure, you’d kill to have your own following, but by calling the Apple people fanboys, you may have just cut off your nose to spite your face.

Guess the marketing department really hit that one out of the park, huh?

Sincerely,

-Kevin Whipps

P.S. Have you heard the rumors about how one of Steve Jobs’ last big “aha!” moments was the TV and how to make it work better? And how the rumor is that this new TV is coming out next year? If the rumors are true, I guarantee there will be a surge of Samsung TVs on sale at the same time — on Craigslist.