Ziray Studio Labs

Many people throw around the term entrepreneur. It seems most people put that in their bios. Don’t tell me you’re an entrepreneur, show me. What have you done?

When we started LTZ, our mobile and web app development company, we didn’t need any venture capital funding. We didn’t need a fancy office to rent. We didn’t need to do the whole fancy company launch. We just sat down at our computers and started coding. And when we finally had a product to ship, we did all the legal paper work and got ourselves a little LLC.

Sure there were risks. The risk of becoming single again was always there. Sure there were long days. 16 hours seemed to be the norm. And sure there were a few new technologies that we created. But when it came down to it, we just had a simple plan: work really hard and make some great products.

The business model we had, seemed like a great idea: become an authority and gateway for indie developers to develop their apps with. Sort of like a record label for mobile app developers, but without the whole ripping them off bit. We’d mentor and direct them to a finished product and take a minimal cut from the net profits. Any programmer can attest to the numerous projects that never make it to a finished, polished, tested app. But that’s exactly what separates the professionals from the amateurs: finished products.

Now, we’re looking at things differently and adjusting our model. We’ve found out a little more about what works and what doesn’t in this new space. When you’re such a small company, the saying, “If you want things done right, you gotta do it yourself,” turns into, “If you want something done, you gotta do it yourself.” It’s really hard to concentrate on writing good code when you’re the tester, the project manager and the client manager all in one.

I’ll talk more about the new direction we’re heading soon. In the meantime, we’re still working on the details and we’ll update everyone as soon as we finalize everything.

I am not an entrepreneur. I just create stuff.

We got a new puppy this past weekend. We finally decided on naming her Kiara. Her shelter name was Lupe, but we wanted something that we picked out since she was going to be our dog. Ana checked out all the shelters, petfinder.com, Craig’s List and everywhere else she could think of online. We had actually went to the Franklin County Humane Society looking for another dog that Ana saw, but she had been adopted that previous weekend.

Instead, we found Kiara in a cage outside, scared to death of the other barking dogs around her. She wouldn’t even come out, but instead cowered into the corner. Ana climbed into the cage and Kiara instantly cuddled up to her. Kiara had actually been returned to the shelter two days before by a women with health problems who couldn’t handle the activeness of a collie puppy. Real intelligent. She was also infested with thousands of ticks, which the humane society had over looked because of her fluffy hair, the fact that the vet was on vacation and that she had only been there for two days.

But she’s adjusting well and Ana has already begun training her in various things and taking her on long walks.

This is no way intended to be a guide to immigration through marriage, just an account of the work process and work we did to accomplish this.

Petition for a Family Member

It’s kind of strange to call someone you’re going to be married to a relative, but that’s what it’s referred to. Any legal resident can petition the government to allow immediate family to join them in the United States. This is the case if you’re an immigrant or a citizen. Upon marrying someone, a citizen can request that the government allow the spouse to enter, live and work within the US. The spouse, if already in the US, can update their visa from, in our case, an F1 student visa, to permanent resident status. The law gets really tricky if you enter the US on a non-immigration visa, in other words not intending to immigrate, after having filed a Petition for Alien Relative. And yes, they call them aliens.

The form, I-130, is just a form stating who I am, how I’m legally in this country (through birth), and what my relation is to the person for whom I’m petitioning. Pretty straight forward.

Changing Visa Status

At the same time, we file an Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status, form I-485. This allows Ana to update her F1 visa to a Permanent Resident visa. After having filed this, she can not leave the country and return on her F1 visa. The reason is, upon entering the US under an F1 student visa, she is stating that by entering on a non-immigration visa, she is not intending to stay in the country, which would be false, since she has filed for permanent residency. It makes sense, but is something people need to be aware of. To get around this, there is another form I-131, Application for Travel Document, that we would need to file until she’s approved for a green card so that she can travel to Colombia or somewhere else on our honeymoon.

Additional Forms

There are a few more forms to file, such as an Application for Employment Authorization, form I-765, biographic information, form G-325A and my favorite, form G-1145, E-Notification of Application/Petition Acceptance, which will send me an email and/or text message when my application has changed status.

The process is pretty straight forward, but we consulted with a lawyer first to know what we were getting ourselves into. The tough part is understanding each form that needs to be filed, how to file it, what you need to file it properly and gathering all the other information and supporting documents that are needed. We can hire a lawyer to do all of this for us after we get married, but we don’t have the money right now. But we’re confidant we can properly do all of this. The trick is just taking a bit at a time and a lot of reading. Each government form has accompanying instructions to follow so it makes the process a lot less daunting.

I’ve been crazy busy ever since we returned from Colombia. We fell back into life in the US at full sprint and have only had a few periods since where we could rest. As a result, I don’t think I’ve been clear on what exactly I’ve been up to with my family and friends. So here’s the short version of most of the major things I’ve been up to since getting back:

iPhone Development

We started a company last year to allow independent iPhone app developers to make the transition from “wanna-be” to published developer. The model works similar to a record label, where LTZ provides the leverage, so that developers can concentrate on coding rather than the logistics of getting apps out. We wanted to start small, get a few early successes and then use that momentum to gather a pool of developers. We’re also planning a Code Kitchen, which is a class to teach iPhone and Mac programming to anyone interested for free.

Most of our early time was spent on logistics, even though we had our first app idea right from the start. It was a lot of waiting; we waited for resources (copy, data, images, feedback), we waited for Apple, we waited for the lawyers and we waited for contracts. So in a year’s time, we finally had an application ready to release. But thankfully, most of that work won’t have to be completed again since the contracts, setup and other logistics are taken care of. I’ll post a longer article on the whole process (what it took, what we learned, etc), but as I type this, our app, BarNinja is “In Review,” waiting to go up on the Apple App Store. It still might get rejected (one never knows with these processes), but we’re hopeful that it will appease the Apple review gods. We’re also more hopeful that the app will actually sell well and we can get some money into the business so we can buy “test” devices, like the brand new iPad for all our people.

Scuba Diving in Blacksburg

As many already know, scuba diving is a relatively new thing for me. However, I instantly fell in love with the sport and have tried to progress as quickly as I can. It’s been a lot cheaper than flying.

I got my Open Water (OW) certification in November of ’08 (with dives in Cozumel, Mexico in December), my Advanced Open Water (AOW) in July of ’09 (with dives in the Florida Keys and on the US Coast Guard Cutter my grandfather served on in World War II), my Rescue Diver certification (that required another certification of Emergency First Responder) and now I’m working on my Divemaster certification, which is a professional level diving certification. As you can image, this has been a long journey, with a ton of training, reading, and diving. The diving part was especially difficult due to the location. Blacksburg is not known for it’s amazing scuba diving, but diving in the local river, which has a maximum depth of 41 feet, has made it a bit easier.

We should be able to finish up the divemaster certification in May of this year. That’ll allow me to help teach some classes with Scott, who runs Avalon Adventures here in Blacksburg and the New River Valley (NRV). He’s my current instructor and I’ve helped him out with his website. The plan is to serve Blacksburg, Christiansburg, Radford, and the surrounding NRV to provide classes, dive trips, dive refreshers and other adventures. Hopefully, we’ll also make some money in the process.

Music

I’ve picked up my guitars again. Sadly, I don’t think I’ve picked them up in at least six months, but I’m at it again. Luckily it only took me a few minutes to remember what those six months made me forget. I am also helping my old Computer Science instructor with his business at Rocket Music. It helps me get back into music, even though its on a strictly computer programming level. Just talking about guitars, buying guitars, customizing guitars and everything guitars reminds me to go pick up one of my guitars and practice, if for only 15 minutes.

Our Foster Dog

Our foster dog Petunia has really adjusted well with us. When we first got her, she had some problems with other dogs, being generally nervous, crying when we left her home alone, etc. We weren’t surprised, since her previous owners abandoned her and she spent a long time in the shelter. Now all she does it try to cuttle up with us and never leaves us, even if that means following us from room to room.

Ana is getting attached to Petunia and I don’t think we’re going to get her adopted. Being a Pitbull mix, people are afraid of her. However, everyone that’s met her has loved her, which is another reason we don’t think we’ll let her be adopted. She never barks, is great with our cat, loves to play, never complains, and is so adorable. She’s gathered such nicknames as Petu, Petufilese and just Perrita. Dogs are a lot of work, but I think in this case, for her, she’s worth it.

Apartment

My girlfriend of about a year, moved in officially a few months ago. She still has her old apartment, but the rent there is taken care of by a sort of sub-lease. Previously, we were always together anyway, cooking food, studying together, grocery shopping together. The only difference was, she wasn’t paying rent or the massive electricity bill we seemed to rack up with her presence. I have an extra bedroom in my condo, which I gave to her for all her stuff. We moved in her tredmill into that room (producing some of the first small scratches in my new hard wood floors), her desk and a bunch of other things so that she has her own space. It’s worked out extremely well and while we’ve had our fights about stupid apartment and living stuff, you don’t truly know a person until you lived with them. That goes for friends and girlfriends.

Spanish

As a result of living with a native Spanish speaker, I’ve picked up a lot. I never learned Spanish. It was always the language of poor people where I lived. Instead I studied German, the language that’s most understood in Europe. While living in Hungary, I learned Hungarian so picking up Spanish was probably the easiest thing for me. With Spanish, for example, just add an ‘O’ or an ‘A’ after any English word of more than 2 syllables and translate word for word and you have a pretty good, understandable sentence.

Before I met Ana (pronounced Ah-na, not Anne-uh by the way), I probably knew less than 20 words, and that’s after having spent two weeks in Mexico scuba diving. Before that, I probably knew around 5. Now I wish I would have learned it sooner, but I’m glad I learned German since Ana and I are planning a trip back to Europe. Ana has never been, so I’ll take us around Hungary, we’ll visit Italy (which is a language both of us have studied, but she understands a lot better) and she can take us around Spain since they almost speak the same language as she does.

We have a savings account set up that we’ve been putting money in since last summer. It’s not a lot, but it’ll at least pay for the plane tickets out there. Then we plan on staying with friends where we can, and since we both have friends all over Europe, it shouldn’t be an issue.