5 years ago I created the most upvoted thread on r/wordpress entitled 'Did I waste a year of my life developing a WordPress theme?' https://www.reddit.com/r/Wordpress/comments/5mvz02/did_i_waste_a_year_of_my_life_developing_a/ and a cross post here https://www.reddit.com/r/digitalnomad/comments/5mw0is/did_i_waste_a_year_of_my_life_developing_a/ in /r/digitalnomad
Quite a lot happened in that time, so let's get into it.
In my previous thread, I mentioned I had a British girlfriend at the time. Something that I did not mention in that thread was that I have been in the adult industry since 2004. To be honest, I sort of just fell into the business. I knew how to make websites, I watched porn frequently and I needed to make money fast without risk of wasting time on a business that wouldn't be profitable (You know, like I ended up doing in 2016). Getting involved in the adult industry is like drug dealing. The product sells itself and you have to be pretty dull to not make any money doing it.
Back in 2015, shortly after we first met, my 21-year-old girlfriend's mother found out about my adult business somehow. She even went as far as finding my mother on Facebook to question her about it. Being pretty annoyed by this situation and also generally losing interest in the adult industry as a business, I wanted to get back into mainstream (non-adult) business.
I decided to make a highly customizable WordPress theme to sell. You all now know how that went (sort of).
Since I had already developed a WordPress plugin called Tube Ace https://tubeace.com (NSFW obv) which imports embedded videos from all the biggest adult video tube sites such as Pornhub, RedTube, YouPorn, xHamster etc.. into WordPress, I had already made a very basic accompanying WP theme for the design layer of the tube site plugin.
Since it was difficult to get sales for the premium WordPress theme I spent a year developing, I decided to give away the theme for free in mid-2017 https://tubeace.com/themes and help boost plugin sales. That was probably the best thing I could have done with the theme. I have been financially coasting on the sales of the Tube Ace plugin for nearly 9 years now as I initially released it back in summer of 2013.
Anyway, I ended the relationship with my British girlfriend in September 2018 while digital nomading, three years after we met. I couldn't see myself with her any longer and I didn't want to waste either of our time. I'm not proud of how I handled the situation because I had to get wasted drinking to muster up the courage to dump her after never having an argument or any issues relationship-wise for that matter. She's a kind, honest, intelligent, hard-working soul and deserves someone great.
I went back home to New Orleans the following week and while playing poker at Harrah's casino at 3 am on a Wednesday (September 11, 2018 to be exact), I sat at table 11, 2 seats left of the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in the poker room. The night before, I watched Alfred Hitchcock's film Rear Window starring Grace Kelly. I was completely charmed and mesmerized by Miss Kelly's screen presence, charm and overall beauty. In nearly every scene I just kept saying to myself "Oh my God, I need to find a woman like that! They just don't make women like this anymore".
Back to poker... this young lady was a fairly skilled player, too. One of the best female poker players I've played against. But remember, poker is a liar's game. She bluffed me out of several descent-sized pots. As she was having her way with me at the card game, every time I would look at her while she scooped pots of my chips, she would smile and wink at me. Having this charming and charismatic lady flirt with me while taking my money definitely made the sting feel much less worse. During the course of the night, she ordered a few tequila and soda cocktails. As she stacks more of my chips with sunrise about an hour away, I jokingly ask if she gives poker lessons. She laughed. Feeling like I have nothing left to lose, I ask if she wants to get a drink. She obliges. It's nearly 6 AM and the casino is right outside the French Quarter which has several 24 hour bars.
We have a couple drinks at The Alibi bar. I kiss her. She invites me be back to her uncle's French Quarter condo which she impressively decorated herself as her profession as an interior designer. The next morning, on the coffee table sits a copy of LIFE Magazine, with no one other than Grace Kelly of the cover. A simultaneous feeling of shock and relief washed over me. Even though I'm not really a religious person, I took this as a sign from God. She's the one! I even took this photo of the magazine cover. https://i.imgur.com/HH425pm.jpg
Having just gotten out of a relationship for the past 3 years and breaking a young woman's heart, I wasn't looking for anything serious and I was starting to enjoy my freedom once again (sigma grindset). This wasn't the usual "hit it and quit it" type of chick. We hit it off right away and we were inseparables. She was like the female equivalent of myself, and she seemed like my soulmate. Tall, smart, blonde, ambitious, loved playing poker and drinking. What else could I ask for? It was the best. She was 28, and I was able to look past her being recently divorced, because she told me her husband had an affair. I felt like his loss was my gain and we were made for each other. I felt like the luckiest guy in the world. I was actually truly falling in love for the first time (at age 36) and thought she was the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.
A few days before Christmas at my girlfriend's apartment. I got up to shower as I usually woke up before my gf (who I never saw wake up before noon). After showering, I got back into bed with her as I left my clothes in the bathroom. All of a sudden, New Orleans police detectives come through the door as we lay in bed. Stacy (yeah, that's really her name) says to me "I'm terrified" as I can feel her thin modelesque frame shaking next to me. The police yell for me to come out of the bedroom first, with my hands up. Since my only set of clothes were still in the bathroom, I had to come out of the bedroom with my hands up, wearing only a towel. I didn't have my contact lenses in, so I couldn't even see if the detectives had their guns drawn at me.
I sit on the sofa as Stacy is instructed to exit the room. They inform her that she has an out-of-state warrant for her arrest from Nashville, Tennessee for felony theft of over $10,000. She's handcuffed and led away by a Louisiana State Trooper after I kiss her on the check and tell her I love her. I had known that she was accused of accepting funds for her interior design business and not delivering the good or services because I read a few bad reviews about her interior design business online. She convinced me that her ex-husband took the funds from their joint bank account or he wrote the bad reviews to discredit her for their ongoing divorce case.
I was absolutely devastated. I was in denial and believing her lies because I was in love. Of course, this put much strain on our relationship as more and more lies kept coming out. I was in love with a complete narcissistic sociopath. This is so me. I left back to Mexico to get away from everything a couple weeks later. She was arrested again for drunk driving after she told me she was going to sleep one night. While I'm in Cancun, she called me at 6 am from jail in New Orleans to ask I could get my lawyer friend to help get her out. She told me she was arrested for driving without a license and completely left out the DWI charge. I looked up her arrest in the online database and she was wearing a fancy low-cut dress, with her perfect breasts on display in her mugshot. That lying f'ing bitch. Now she's tearing my soul out internationally. I foolishly agree to go back with her in New Orleans after a month away in Mexico as I was still infatuated with her. We ended up seeing each other off and on for 6 months. It felt like years because there were so many ups and down in that time.
I never wanted to feel that way again, and realized every woman I ever dated (over a hundred) was damaged, some with severe mental issues. Probably has to do with the fact that I met them all while drinking in bars as I know I have also had battles with binge drinking for over a decade now. Stacy was the first girlfriend I had who had a good relationship with her father, a retired airline pilot. He even flew down from Pittsburg with $50,000 in cash to bail her out of jail for her out of state warrant.
Moving on and picking up the pieces, I was ready to start working on a new project while traveling around again. One of the most frustrating experiences when trying to sell my premium theme a few years prior was getting it listed in marketplaces such as themeforest, which was denied by many for whatever reasons. I always wanted to own a marketplace website and going through that made me want to build my own eCommerce platform even more. This story will end up being similar to how Ferruccio Lamborghini, a tractor company owner, started his car company out of frustration with Ferrari.
I started working on the new marketplace in April 2019 and figured I should have something ready to launch in a few months. In October 2019, I did a "soft launch" to get feedback and see if anyone would sign up and add their items to sell. The marketplace is like a vending machine for any digital product, so I named it VendBits https://vendbits.com
I made some posts about my new offering here on Reddit and a few discussion forums. A few people signed up and added their items, which looked promising. The first version of the site was very basic. The "Sell Item" page had fields for title, description, price, accept paypal/bitcoin, tags and a message field which instructed users to add a thank you message and link to the digital product hosted on another website. The first version didn't even have an upload form for the product. The seller would have to upload the product to a service such a Dropbox or Google Drive and reveal the download URL after purchase.
Feeling like I could improve the user-friendliness (especially for the sellers), I went back to focusing on the development of the marketplace functionality, instead of the marketing.
Having been addicted to YouTube for years now, I wanted to have video uploading and streaming playback along with the vended product file download options. This meant I had to convert any uploaded video to mp4, generate multiple resolutions of video, thumbnail frame, all while extracting and storing the metadata (duration, filesize, bitrate, resolution, frame rate, aspect ratio, audio codec, video codec, GPS coordinates, Phone/camera make and model etc..) for each video.
In addition to video, I wanted audio uploading for music, audiobooks, sound effects, etc.. This would take more time, of course - delaying the re-launch by months for every set of new features I added. It was like the theme development over again.
Having always been a solo entrepreneur and battling feelings of loneliness and solitude would fuel my desires to binge drink alcohol for a couple consecutive days at a time every couple weeks. This behavior was always my worst as an adult and the root cause of many of my issues financially, socially and professionally. The feeling of possibly being in denial and having no control over this always depressed me for days after my drinking sessions. I would be either hungover or physically and mentally depleted each and every time with feeling of hopelessness in finding friendship and love as I'm in my late 30s.
I decided to make a stand and finally quit drinking on Christmas Eve in 2019 so I can improve my social circle and dating opportunities. A couple months into quitting drinking, COVID starts in early 2020. At a socially-distanced gathering I was invited to by some friends I met over a year prior with Stacy, I was talking to a newly-recruited female FBI agent and told her I don't date women who date alcohol. Without hesitation, she says "Utah". I immediately reject her idea and tell her Utah is full of Mormons and how my father is coincidentally Mormon while owing the third-highest amount of child support in the state of Louisiana.
I pondered this suggestion for a few weeks and realized it makes complete sense for me to go to Utah. I love the outdoors, I'm desperate for a change and new hope in social and love life and I recalled how I met some extremely friendly Mormon missionaries while playing basketball in Play del Carmen, Mexico back in 2018 who really embraced me and made me feel part of a community. Only the gay community has embraced and attempted to recruit me to this degree before.
I booked a room on Airbnb in a house in Provo, Utah in June 2020. Utah and Louisiana may as well be polar opposites. Utah has no state lottery and very few bars as Mormons don't drink, gamble or have pre-marital sex. Nearly everyday I would visit the Rec center to workout and play basketball, again never feeling so embraced by a community before. At this point, I'm 7 months sober from alcohol and finally feel like I have full control of my life for the first time as I have no desire to drink any longer. Utah is full of many great National Parks including Zion https://i.imgur.com/sH481jj.jpg and Bryce Canyon https://i.imgur.com/aq2kskZ.jpg
I have also taken a vow of celibacy and want the next woman that I'm with to be my wife and the mother of my children. Everyone I met was so kind, honest and wholesome. I'm convinced this is where I need to move and I plan to come back here after I get my finances finally in order after I launch VendBits in a month or two.
I plan to head back to Mexico for a few months while I live in "monk mode", working everyday and avoiding a hedonistic lifestyle. But before that, I took $49 flights to Las Vegas and San Francisco. I had been to Vegas 15 years before in 2005 and won at 9 out of 12 casinos playing blackjack, but San Francisco was the US city I had been wanting to visit the most. This was during pandemic, and being the extremely liberal city that SF is, many places still weren't re-opened. I walked the hilly streets of SF for a couple days, seeing countless homeless people shooting and doing drugs openly on the sidewalks, miserable looking purpled-haired feminist women, one with "Smash The Patriarchy" painted on her purse who leered at me while I tried to read it. I've been wanting to come here for 20 years. It was the most disappointing travel experience ever. I'm now absolutely convinced Utah is the place for me, but I have to get VendBits done first.
Back in Playa del Carmen, I'm back on the grind coding nearly everyday as much as I can, "balanced" by crappy Mexican weed and modafinil. At this point, I'm 9 months sober from booze, but I'm getting lonely again.
In September 2020, I go to Fat Tuesday's, a daiquiri bar on 5th Ave. I have a couple beers, but I don't let myself have more and get drunk. A table of 3 young Mexicans folks, two guys and a girl invite me over to play a drinking dice game. We're having a great time. Suddenly, a tall, seductively-dressed American woman a couple years younger than me asks to use my cigarette lighter. She's wearing a short, tight, bright colored dress, showing off her busty, curvy figure and long legs. We start talking, I say so long to my new Mexican buddies and the two of us head off to a nightclub to do whatever.
I had a couple drinks already, and I don't want to get drunk, so I start drinking ice water. We're sitting at the table in the loud dance club, then she begins dancing with my left knee between her now standing legs, rubbing my leg between her soft thighs. This was the most physical contact I've had with a woman in 9 months and I'm beginning to become extremely aroused. I decided, F it.. I'll totally go home with this chick if she wants to, breaking my celibacy streak. Next thing I know, I see her crumbling a white pill wrapped in tin foil with her fingers into my ice water cup.
She says "it's just ecstacy". I not a stranger to the drug, but it's been over 15 years since I've done it. Not wanting to spoil my chances with her, I drink the water with the X in it anyway. Feeling anxiety and all that, I just want to get back to one of our places to relax. She finally brings me to her hotel room after much teasing and filibustering. When I come out of the bathroom, she's laying in a hammock, wearing only her bra and panties. I walk over and start stroking her long legs with my hand as I kiss her. We end up in bed very shortly after.
She's in town for the next 9 days, so naturally it seems we'll have a fling during this time. The first few days together, it was actually nice to take a break from work and enjoy the company of a sexy lady while we dine at many restaurants and lounge at beach clubs in the daytime with passionate, intimate nights. https://i.imgur.com/d0EV7b2.jpg
She extended her trip a few days as I agreed she could stay with me at my apartment. She tells me she is moving to Miami in a few weeks and she asks if I want to meet her there. I agree to do so.
As days in sunny beach town paradise go on, I have a drink here and there (but not getting drunk), while she drinks hers and she uses cocaine quite frequently everyday. I get practically no work done, and it's stating to make me anxious again.
On the night before she flies back home to Minneapolis, we have dinner at a fancy restaurant located inside a cenote (a natural pit, or sinkhole, resulting from the collapse of limestone bedrock). We had a bottle of wine with dinner, and after we head to a hookah bar as she suggests. As we're sitting outside, taking turns on the hookah, several rose flower sellers start hounding me to buy her roses. I decline as I'm annoyed by the sellers and vendors constant pressuring to go into their shops and buy their crap souvenirs. It's also at this pint I am feeling the effects from the glasses of wine, which is the most I've felt in 9 months which made me feel disappointed in myself for giving into the temptation.
I get fed up and tell her I want to go home and relax with her. She says she's not ready yet. I patiently wait with her another half hour as a constant barrage of rose sellers keep bothering us. I finally have enough and tell her I'm going back to my apartment after the long, expensive, exhausting week. She say's she going to stay out without me.
Fine, fuck it. I head back to my place without her and decide this relationship can never work. After an hour or so, I tell her she needs to come back to get her luggage because I need to sleep so I can get back to work the following day. After much texting and phone calls she finally comes back, but I tell her I want her out of my apartment immediately. She refused and proceeds to lay down in the other bedroom. I tell her I want her out, but she refuses to get out of bed. I start packing her things in her suitcase, to send her on her way.
After packng her things for her, she still refuses to leave. I tell her I'll get the doorman/security guy to call the police if I must. When I return from seeing the doorman downstairs, we begin arguing as she starts to smash her own face with the bottom of a Zippo lighter fluid container. She actually bought it for me as a gift, as well as a bottle of cologne. https://i.imgur.com/bAYuaL4.jpg
She gave herself a cut under her left eye with the can of lighter fluid, knowing she would try to tell the police I did it to her. The doorman shows up to escort her outside. Finally, she's gone and I begin to feel a little relief even though I cannot get back to sleep after getting so riled up.
Next thing I know, I see police lights flashing though the windows from a police truck on the street downstairs below and the crazy bitch is talking to the cop in the driver's seat. https://i.imgur.com/aAfXkyX.jpg
After a few minutes, around 4 am, there's a knock on the door. Of course, I know who it is. It's her and 3 Mexican police officers. They don't speak any English and are communicating with me through the Google translator mobile app. They ask about what happened to her eye. I tell them I have never hit a woman in my life and that she did it to herself as I point to the can of Zippo fluid. She told then I have marijuana, but I had smoked my last joint earlier in the day. The police didn't bother searching around or questioning me much further. I believe they could tell she was coked up as she acted erratically and kept sniffling with her dilated eyes on top of her fake crying.
With her gone, along with a couple Percocet pills purchased over the counter at a pharmacy, a tropical storm passed over helping wash away the distraught feelings I was experiencing.
A few days after that, I switched towns to Campeche and then Vera Cruz on the north, Gulf of Mexico side of the Yucatan Peninsula. Along my bus ride to Campeche, I saw this vending machine along side the road. https://i.imgur.com/o1cmpGm.jpg I was humored by how the logo had nearly the same colors and font I had already designed for VendBits. Was this a sign to keep working or was I too late, I wondered.
As another year goes by as I spend a month in several Mexican towns from coast to coast, Cancun to Cabo. I have now visited 22 of the 32 states in Mexico, but unfortunately not without more unfortunate incidents.
In late February 2021 while staying in San Luis Potosi for two months, my luck run out again. I was crossing a pedestrian bridge one evening as I was robbed for my iPhone 11. I escaped unscathed even though a gun was shown to me before I threw my phone on the ground and took off running to the other side of the bridge. The $950 iPhone is nearly 2 months rent in Mexico and losing it makes it counter-intuitive as I'm mostly staying in Mexico for the low cost of living and staying focused. Having traumatic events is not exactly conducive to productivity. I experienced memory loss for a few days after this. For instance, I would find myself repeating the same tasks over and over such as putting a trash bag in the container after a new one was already there. It's like my mind would not register certain events.
San Luis Potosi isn't a touristic city, and was my least favorite due to the extremely dry climate and feeling of unwelcomeness there as many locals would spit on the ground as I walked by, meaning they don't want me there.
I came back to Playa Del Carmen in May 2021 and have been here a year now. This is the longest amount of time I have stayed in the same place since I got my passport in 2016 and started traveling.
After 19 months without getting wasted on drink, one night in late August 2021, I went out and I met a very cute, petite girl from South America at a night club. After a few tequila shots, I left my phone on the sofa and I went to the bathroom. That was the last time I saw the phone. I dated the young lady a few times after that, but I don't think she took my phone.
Three days after replacing the new phone I lost, I foolishly went out drinking yet again. As I was walking home at 3 am, I was jumped by 4 young Mexican guys on the street. While being kicked in the back and head on the ground, I was robbed for my nearly thousand dollar phone once again. Every single time I've drank again since quitting for 19 months, something terrible has happened to me.
Never being one to easily give up, I remind myself daily of the "burn the boats" story of the conqueror Hernando Cortez which occurred here on the Yucatan Peninsula 500 years ago. I had been prepared to achieve my goal of launching VendBits successfully or die here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlNngcDNFS0
The good news is, I haven't drank since and I'm back on my path to success. Over the past few years, I have become a distance runner, running over 20 marathons. I ran 40 miles on my 40th birthday 2 month ago in March. I plan on competing in my first Ironman triathlon in the next year or so. I'm in the best shape of my life now and have hit peak level attractiveness. I know this because everyday I hear women moaning and grunting as I run by shirtless, like a thoroughbred stallion as one young woman in the group asks who the hell I am as another answers her with "my baby daddy."
I've got my self-diagnosed ADHD under control with the help of Ritalin purchased over the counter here in Mexico. Something that I have struggled with for a long time.
The great news is, I re-launched VendBits today. I'm extremely optimistic about it. It should keep me busy for at least the next 10 years while becoming ridiculously wealthy. I have seeded the site with photos and videos from my journey while developing the site. Here is my profile page https://vendbits.com/chris
I would like to take the time now to thank the lovely people of Mexico (those who didn't rob me) for welcoming me to their beautiful country and hosting me while I build my online empire.
So, in closing, the next chapter of my life will be building this new business (API and mobile apps coming next) and exiting the porn business while searching for my young, non-crazy, virgin wife in Utah and starting a family while continuing to travel the world. See you in a few years! ;)
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