We’ve come a long way baby!

I sat alone in my first home office at our third floor walk up San Francisco apartment overlooking Golden Gate Park. Alone, because nobody else could fit inside the walk-in closet with me and my 21″ Radius monitor – that is where it all began. I hunched over my keyboard after hours, focused on producing my first ever promotional video for Agreda Communications. The year was 1998.

My tools were a souped-up SuperMac S900, Adobe After Effects, Illustrator and a selection of Kai’s Power Tools stock art CDs. For anyone wondering, CD ROM was a popular digital media storage technology of the late twentieth century that used compact optical discs as a memory device for storing large data files. My library of a dozen discs must have held more than a hundred photos!

The project was a promo clip for the new full service marketing communications firm Rene and I decided to create shortly after getting married. I had taken on a (very) few freelance clients from my walk-in office, so we thought it would be a good idea to leave great paying jobs and relocate six hours north to remote Humboldt County and start up our own home based graphic design and production business. We heard about a small group of Lone Eagles working “Behind the Redwood Curtain” who had formed the now defunct Redwood Technology Consortium. They were putting together an “Interactive CD” to promote the services of local tech-savvy types.

Agreda Communications evolved over the years, and so did we.

But how did we get Here exactly?

Fast forward 10 Years: Rene had another bright idea.

We grew our graphics shop into a nice little enterprise. Just like in that little video, we provided full service marketing communications, print, and publishing solutions to clients around the globe for ten years. We were getting burnt out, and it was time to expand the operation, or let someone else do that. Then Jerry got cancer. So we sold everything and hit the road. But we were by no means retired.

That was ten years ago.

Short Answer:

Hard work. That’s how we got here, and that’s how we are able to stay here. Not that “here” is any particular place, per se. Not anymore.*

We work full-time. We work every day. We work at all hours. The lifestyle we have designed just allows us to work wherever we want. Our products and services may be far different than those flying by in that first video I produced, but they keep us on the road.

From maintaining Tripawds – the largest online community for three legged pets and their people – and managing the Tripawds Foundation, to offering website support services and marketing help, making metal jewelry, and writing; we are keeping busy, to keep fuel in the tank. And, to help others learn how to work from anywhere!

*Where is here, and where are we headed?

One of my main goals once we hit the road was to find a little piece of property to call our own. Our own private paradise. Mission accomplished. It’s been wonderful having this beautiful place to park in the summer. If I had my way, I’d never leave – the view is amazing, and we have full hook-ups, there just happens to be a house in the way.

Where will the road take us in the next ten years? I can’t say for sure.

Stay along for the ride and find out!

One thing is certain, as we seriously downsize for full-time RVing once again, it has been fun finding old photos, mementos, and digital treasures like that little video buried deep on my old clamshell iBook!