Derek Tacconelli Blog

I have been quite busy doing this and that. “This” being slowly painting the entire house, starting with the two sheds in the backyard, fence, neighbors garage. I still have to paint the actual outside of the house. “That” being investing a lot of my time into making ThirstMax an operational business that makes money! I am a partner to my father in his business — and his invention is that of ThirstMax. It has been going on too long and not moving forwards, and he has recruited my help to get the ball rolling. It has been a very humbling experience, and I am learning a great deal. It is no easy task to start a company and I need all the help and support I can get! So, if you’re in the support giving mood, give us a hoot on Twitter or Facebook and sign up for our newsletter. Who knows, you might want to buy (gasp) one! Although the Facebook page is still in production, it is getting pretty close to the real thing. I have had to brush up on my HTML (painful, *shudders*) and am learning new snippets of information everyday! GO ME!

The next big project of mine is to upgrade the site my Dad made into a fully functional WordPress static sales page and separate blog. All working with our current e-mailer, MailChimp (which I love dearly so far). WordPress has such a rich variety of widgets and plugins, so I am naturally very geekily excited, droll running down my chops. It will be a lot of work tweaking whatever theme we choose to fit the color and design scheme we have in mind. But this venture will make our business much more scalable and easier to maintain and upgrade when the time comes.

In other news, I have set some personal goals. Keeping it simple, there are only two: Lose 30 pounds and move out of my parents’ house both by December 31, 2010. I feel like these are the only two things that are restricting my creativity and general wellbeing. Beyond the obvious health reasons, I think that if I can conquer my weight problem I can do anything, period. It has been a very difficult struggle ever since I injured my knee back in my senior year of high school (funny how I still use this excuse for my uncontrolled eating binges). Since then, I have been exercising less and less — besides a short stint in college (where I got pretty slim and muscular). For the last few months I have been exercising with Angie (running, gymming, and plyometrics) and am feeling great. The next hard part is my diet — I love eating too much and need to cut out my late-night dining.

Continue reading Life Update 8/4/2010