{"id":886,"date":"2010-08-19T23:31:39","date_gmt":"2010-08-20T06:31:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rustinjessen.com\/?p=886"},"modified":"2010-09-08T00:14:56","modified_gmt":"2010-09-08T07:14:56","slug":"woo-hoo-its-a-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rustinjessen.com\/wordpress\/woo-hoo-its-a-birthday\/","title":{"rendered":"Woo Hoo! It’s a birthday!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well… not so much a birthday per se, but there is something that just turned a year old. <\/p>\n

On August 15th, the little company<\/a> that Janey and I started as a vehicle to chase some dreams, celebrated it’s 365th day in operation. To be fair, the actual company was formed a bit earlier, but we didn’t do any business until I had finished my employment obligation to everyone’s favorite entertainment company<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The year has been a rollercoaster ride of monumental proportions. I’ve learned so much, made many mistakes, hit a few home runs and met some wonderful people.<\/p>\n

I have loved the independence to live life on my own terms (which usually means breaking out to hang with my wife and boy all too often). I love working with my pal Nanna (the dog) at my feet, in a studio I put together with my own two hands. I love that my desk is next to my wife’s, and I love that we do what we do together.<\/p>\n

We’ve launched a fun new product<\/a>, that is only the first of several we’re either working on or have thought through. The future is rife with fun and interesting projects that will be executed with passion and love.<\/p>\n

All that said, I’ve missed Disney terribly. Well… I miss what I loved about it. I miss the magic. I miss my friends. I miss my mentors. I miss the work, that I did care deeply about. I’m very happy to be consulting on Disney projects, but it’s not the same as being a Cast Member… and even more so, not the same as living and working so close to Disneyland – which holds a place in my heart that I couldn’t possibly describe. Sometimes I miss it so bad that I physically hurt. <\/p>\n

Of course there’s plenty that I don’t miss. The sterile corporate crap that happens at any company of that size. I don’t miss red tape or layers and layers of hierarchy. I do kind of miss being the guy who goes rogue to get things done and prove a point. Sometimes it flew, and sometimes it crashed and burned… but I tried new things and it was cool. <\/p>\n

There are some people I don’t miss. Mostly the people who’s priorities put process before product, or themselves before their Guests. We didn’t get along and I made a habit of being pretty vocal about that. <\/p>\n

In the end, the time seemed right to say goodbye to those people who were bringing me down, even if it meant leaving a company that I loved. We had some dreams that needed chasing.<\/p>\n

We’ve only scratched the surface of what we set out to do. We’ll keep chasing and making cool things happen. I’m so happy that I’ve been able to provide for my family doing something I love. I’m so happy to know that we’re scheduled up with both client work and our own projects. I’m so happy that things have worked out so far, and I’m cautiously optimistic for the year to come.<\/p>\n

So Happy Birthday, J. Blackbird. You’ve been our chariot through this new adventure. And I’m looking forward to what year two brings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well… not so much a birthday per se, but there is something that just turned a year old. On August 15th, the little company that Janey and I started as a vehicle to chase some dreams, celebrated it’s 365th day in operation. To be fair, the actual company was formed a bit earlier, but we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[68,29,69,49,67],"class_list":["post-886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-posts","tag-birthday","tag-disney","tag-dreams","tag-freelance","tag-jblackbird","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rustinjessen.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rustinjessen.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rustinjessen.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rustinjessen.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rustinjessen.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=886"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/rustinjessen.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":922,"href":"http:\/\/rustinjessen.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886\/revisions\/922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rustinjessen.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rustinjessen.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rustinjessen.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}