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Who are you?

I’m a software developer, consultant, mentor, pupil, leader, son, brother, friend, Catholic, sinner, amateur poker player, Tae Kwon Do-ist (for lack of a better term), and bad writer (I’m working on that last part…)

What do you want?

I want to competently turn cash into great software. I want to recruit and organize the building blocks of a great company (the people). I want to retire with 2.5 million dollars at the age of 65. I want to be the best husband, father, brother, and son to my family. I want to finally earn a black belt in Tae Kwon Do six years after I started.

I thought this would be a good way to start out a new blog. I’m fully aware that most blogs suck, and it will be a while before this one catches any eyes. I have, however, come to realize two facts about my personal and professional lives.

One, two years of graduate school and two years of work as a contract software developer has all but destroyed my communication skills. This job just doesn’t lend itself to social growth. Without training, social and communication skills erode just like physical skills do. As an exercise, every programmer ought to try to explain the tasks for the week to a random layman at the job site; the further removed from technology the better. The division sys admin could work for a start, the lobby secretary is a better challenge. With time and practice, eventually you can try a project manager. That last one isn’t for the faint of heart.

Secondly and less melodramatically, blogs are without a doubt a powerful networking and professional development tool. We engineers wrestle with new problems each and every day, and perhaps I can contribute a thing or two to the community at large. We’re also notorious for slamming each others’ work. But I’m not one to back down from the harshness of public rebuke, so I’ll post some of the challenges I come across, and some of the solutions, and offer them up for cruel review. At worst I’ll come of as incompetent; at best I’ll find some new insight into my work.

I also want to have fun with this. So slam my attempts at comedy, too!