Here we go again. 9 A.M., EST. I unlock my office door, stroll in, and fire up one of three computers peering at me with their sleepy screensaver visages. I use this one for email; I’ve experimented with all kinds of ways to deal with the massive amount of email I get every day, but in the end I’ve narrowed the workable solution down to a single laptop running my email.Here we go again. 9 A.M., EST. I unlock my office door, stroll in, and fire up one of three computers peering at me with their sleepy screensaver visages. I use this one for email; I’ve experimented with all kinds of ways to deal with the massive amount of email I get every day, but in the end I’ve narrowed the workable solution down to a single laptop running my email. When I travel, the laptop goes with me. It’s a modern ball and chain, although I’ve substituted the chain for a nice leather carry satchel.

I fire up Eudora 4.3 by clicking the little mail icon, sigh, and wait as several hundred emails download. I don’t really like Eudora. Actually, I hate it; but it’s the email client I hate the least. It’s one of the most poorly engineered pieces of software I’ve had the displeasure of using, but it’s the only one that can handle the huge amount of email I receive. Yes, it screws up pretty regularly, but I’ve learned how to deal with its quirks and have workarounds for most of them.

Now’s a good time to grab a cold can of Diet Pepsi from the fridge. Yep, that’s what we drink here. An obscene amount of it. Diet Pepsi (we call it ‘DP’) is line-itemed in my monthly profit and loss reports. By now, the rest of the crew is waking up and drifting through the front and back doors of the main office. I make my rounds and greet them. What were they up to over the weekend? Twinkley usually has an amazing story to tell about her car (did she wreck her Z28 again? I always brace myself for the possibility of hearing about another car accident), Laurie tells me about her weekend and her cute daughter,

Busa mentions how he cracked the sound barrier on his Saturday motorcycle ride, Chris spent the weekend forcing an Apple II+ to talk to an IBM AS400 via a parallel interface, Buran vegged out watching Babylon 5, and Scotty fills me in on all of his hot dates. Ah, to be 18 again.

Email’s done… ding ding! I sit down and start weeding through it. This usually takes a couple of hours… and for every legitimate email I have 5-6 spams to kill. Such is life when you’ve used the same email address for years.

After email’s done, it’s time to look at stats. How are the TrueCash paysites doing? How is TheAdultWebmaster.com doing? Looks good, and I make a few notes of who I need to contact to ask about their traffic. I take a look at our webmaster traffic trends… looks like we’re on track. Lots of emails to go through regarding traffic deals, content trades, and webmaster issues.

We’re usually working on a new project around here, so I spend some time checking out the latest progress and offering my input on what should be modified or improved.

At some point during the afternoon, I’ll sit down in my office chair, sip a cold DP and think about things. Sometimes they’re ideas, sometimes they’re ways to improve our products or efficiency. Today, I reflect on how the best solution is often not the coolest or highest-tech, but the simplest. I marvel that some of our crudest inventions have been the most effective; that some of the most lame-brained concepts we came up with have endured and grown to become almost sublime in their ugly elegance. Take our office intranet, for example; this little internet widget was born as a list of text links on a secure-access web site. Today, all members of our company access our intranet to administrate our webmaster program, control our adult webmaster resource site, track banner impressions, the works.

I think about mistakes we’ve made. Oh yes, there have been more than a few in the past, and undoubtedly there will be many more in the future. How to handle them? Learn to recognize when they happen, accept your losses, and move on. It’s a normal part of business.

I chuck the DP can in the trash and savor one final moment of peace before going back to work. Where are we going on this roller coaster ride? I can’t predict the future. Some days you move forward – little revelations. Some days, you lose a little ground. But where are you in relation to the past? What is your trend? What you do today — right now — affects your tomorrow.

Today’s one day. Tomorrow’s another. Where do YOU plan to be?