Simple Tricks and Nonsense: A brainstorming post
Blog needs a major overhaul. I really like the bliki idea (blog/wiki) as it seems the only sensible way of automatically cross linking content such that it remains accessible. This foolishness of blogging being forceably time linear is as stupid as using cassette tapes for music.
It’s time for me to get back into IT. Trading isn’t working and, more importantly, I don’t really care about it. At the end of the day, even if I’ve traded remarkably well the only thing that’s different in the world is the size of my trading account and some femto-modifications to the price of certain instruments as an affect of my involvement. Money is a necessary motivation and I’ve enjoyed tremendously having lots of it in the past but I’ve never been deluded by it’s value into making it my primary motivation. (Actually, that’s not true. There is a time I chose money over enjoying my job, before I’d had any idea what it was like to have money. I did make the best decision I could have back then. Frankly it’s only now, 10+ years later that I’m coming to terms with the fact that I can’t reasonably have expected myself to have made any other choice at the time.)
I say “get back into IT” because while I’ve just started up the job search engines, I’m not married to programming. It seems to me that this would be a really great time to shift gears a bit.
In a perfect world I’d work on small (time) scale assignments in a hired-gun capacity. Historically I’ve been far too easy to bore in a noncompelling project. I’d rather come in with a full head of steam and grind for 6-12 months and leave having done a damn good job.
The Agile/XP Coach job was an interesting experiment because it really shined a light on a great deal of untapped potential. But it was ultimately doomed to failure as a large-scale teaching job. Piecemeal and small scale classes, training, pairing and tool creation and setup were wonderful. When it came time to actually fly half way around the world and do 3 weeks of training, I simply wasn’t ready for it and bowed out, which was unabashedly the right thing to do.
No matter where I land, I simply can’t go through a day without making something any more. Hell, even in my horrible heroin like addiction to MMOs I spend most of my time “crafting.” But I do very well with small scale quick hit tools and programs. Everything from protocol ‘breakout box’ taps for testing purposes to banged out html screen scrapers and even mini gui apps that help me get through the day. I churn these things out all the damn time. Unfortunately I’ve never been quite focused enough with job responsibilities to be a top tier perl or python scripter in a unixen environment, otherwise there’d be that facet open.
For now, my job search is on autopilot, dice, monster, hotjobs, a couple really great recruiters (yes, they’re out there. There are a couple who didn’t get their job by failing the ethics exam to be used car salesmen.)
I want something a little different though. Something that plays to my strengths, but seems to me to be a fairly odd niche.
On To!
Tags: Blogging, Programming, trading