I’ve wanted to blog more often about something other than religious opinions and learnings. This fits that description…

Several minutes ago I took a break from working to post on a message board I frequent (seen on the screen of my laptop in the photo above). Now I’m taking a break from taking a break from working to write to you and show off my mobile office. What you see in that photo is almost all I need to make a living these days.

I love being self employed. I get to choose when and where I work. On some days I may work from home until 3am, while other times I’ll head to Starbucks or Barnes and Noble or some other wireless hotspot with my MacBook Pro in tow. My home internet account also includes free wifi access at more than 10,000 locations across the country. I make good use of it, rarely working two days in a row from the same location. Tonight just happens to find me sitting in Barnes and Noble.

A different location a day keeps the boredom away, I say.

I manage and market auto dealer websites. I’m good at what I do. When I owned porn sites I figured out how to obtain decent search engine results for the terms I was seeking. While many Internet users may not find my current subject matter as interesting as what I used to “sell”, the same concepts apply to anything I wish to market online. My current clients have been seeing very good results.

Perhaps God really CAN use all things for good?

I’ve recently been working on something that, if successful, will expand my business to the point of needing a few more employees. For now, my son’s mother works for me. Because of this, she has a nice boss that allows her to work her own hours, enabling her to spend time in my son’s classroom any time she chooses to do so. If my expansion plan comes to fruition I’m considering the idea of hiring other single mothers, granting them that same freedom.

The very first blog entry written from my brand new 17” MacBook Pro comes at you from 31,000 feet in the air. I’m heading to the Orange County Airport to speak at a Porn and Pancakes event at Mariner’s Church in Irvine, California. I don’t remember where I found it, but I use this handy dandy little program called “Journler” that lets me write out my blog entries for transfer to WordPress when I have an Internet connection.

As for the new MacBook: no, I’m not made of money. It was just a necessary purchase for my business. One of my clients has a website that can only be managed using a program that runs exclusively on Windows XP, despite more than an hour of arguing on the phone with tech support trying to convince them to put in 5 minutes of their precious time to set up a very simple solution that would have allowed me to use OSX on my previous Mac. Things didn’t go my way, so I have no choice but to use Windows for that particular account. The new MacBooks have an Intel chip, which makes it easy to run both Windows XP and Apple’s OSX. It seems blasphemous to put such an inferior operating system as Windows XP on a Mac but ya gotta do what ya gotta do, ya know? Besides, since Wendy began working for me earlier this month she’s been asking if we can get her a notebook computer. I’d originally planned to upgrade mine sometime in November after the release of Apple’s next version of OSX, but I can’t say I’m all that sad to push that purchase date forward a month and change.

Wendy now has my 15” PowerBook. She’s happy. I’m happy. We all skip down the yellow brick road singing Kumbaya.

It’s 7:55PM and my flight is due to land at 8:40pm. By 9 o’clock I should be checking into my room at the Hotel just across the street from the airport, then it’s out to dinner with Craig Gross and a girl from the adult industry who wishes to remain anonymous for now. This morning I received a message from her that she’s grown really sick of the porn world and would like someone to talk to. Since she’s only 50 or so miles from where where we’re staying I invited her to meet with Craig and I tonight. Send up a prayer for us, will ya?

Tomorrow afternoon I’ll be flying back to Sacramento, spending the night and speaking during both services at Arcade Church. I could use your prayers for that as well. When I take the time to get alone with God before speaking I can definitely tell the difference. Non-praying Donny stutters and has problems getting words out in a coherent manner. Praying Donny is usually eloquent and can definitely “feel the Presence,” an amazing difference for sure. God leaves no doubt who’s to be taking center stage. Hint: it’s not Donny Pauling (and should I ever doubt that fact, Wendy is happy to remind me… she loves to put me in my place).

Rather than writing anything further, I’m gonna shut down Journler and play with my new computer. Until next time, may God bless each and every one of you.

…and may the fleas of a thousand camels avoid your armpits!