Wow. 2005. It seems like a date you read in some Sci-Fi book. "In 2005, man landed on Mars... by 2008 we had colonized Io." Whatever, that ain't happening! Between the ailing ISS and, and... nothing. There isn't anything else. The space race is over, we've given up on the moon, and the ISS is way, way, way behind schedule. Even the shuttle is due to be retired and has no replacement. Well, that's it folks. I wonder if the Bush folks will shut down NASA alltogether.
I remember thinking 2005... I'll be the CEO of my own company. That didn't happen. Well technically I figured by my 30th... but since I turned 32 this year, I'm way, way behind schedule myself. Sometimes I think I'll never make it.
As far back as I can remember I wanted to work with computers... but getting a hold of them seemed impossible. They barely existed in Alabama in the 80s, and I certainly couldn't afford one. I remember I asked my parents for a Commodore 64 (the reigning champ of the day), but got a Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer 2. It was a total piece of junk... but it was better than no computer at all. I checked out a book from the base library on IBM BASIC and combed it from cover-to-cover, finally transcribing and converting one of the text games into CC2. It took several days of diligent work and debugging but I finally broke the code and got it running. To be safe, I backed it up to tape. <gr>
I was so proud of myself. Though I was about 10-15 years behind the Gate's and Job's of the world, I figured I could catch up [Ahhh youth]. Sadly, I made a brief sojourn into the Navy where the most programming I got to do was in dBase IV v1.5... oh, but the things I did with it!
My dBase app took advantage of some hefty 'new' features added between the 1.1 and 1.5 releases. Specifically a new form of cursors that allowed me to 'filter' datasets without running a brand new query on the database. This sped up basic searches by a fator of 10 at least. Then there was the screen.bin plugin that allowed me to make the light-bar menus lightning fast. Man those were good times.
Later on I started doing HTML for a number of folks, including a help desk that I was assigned to for a few years while in the Navy. After that I was a contractor providing systems administration and maintenance services (where I picked up an NT4 MCSE)... but somehow migrated myself into doing ASP2 / SQL Server 7 work. This lead to a web team gig with ASP3 and SQL Server 2000... which eventually gave way to ASP.NET b2, rc1, rc2, and 1.0. To challenge myself I even switched to C# from VBScript in the migration to .NET. I haven't looked back. Sure the IDE works better with VB, but I really prefer C# syntax. I derailed myself again by engineering and supporting a worldwide rollout of SMS 2003. Fortunately, this only lasted a year, and I got back to development in a big way. First in ASP.NET 1.1... and hopefully soon in VS 2005 and SQL Server 2005! Oh, it's going to be an exciting year!
Anyway, my point is - where do I go from here? I love programming... but I've also picked up a strong interest in history (particularly Ancient History). GMU offers a good masters program in Software Engineering (I already picked up my BSCS from Strayer University), but Stanford offers a great program (well, ok - the only program I could find online) in Ancient History.
On one hand, my son lives in PA (whereas I currently live in VA), and GMU is in VA... so no move required. On the other hand Stanford is in CA... so a big move is required there. Also, I'd love to get my MCSD out of the way... it would certainly beef up my resume for those that require these things. I have even taken the C# Web App test already (830).
I'd also like to write a book on ASP.NET 2.0 (C#) regarding Application UI design. It's certainly my strong point; loving to write helps too.
Finally, I've fallen out of shape in the past few years. I'd love to lose 20 pounds off my gut, and put it back in my shoulders, arms and chest as muscle. I pay the $50/mo to Lifetime Fitness already. I might as well show up!
If you put all of these informal goals together... it appears that I'll have a busy 2005. To recap:
- Masters in Software Engineering from GMU
- Masters in Ancient History from Stanford
- MCSD
- Author a book in ASP.NET 2.0 UI Design
- Get Back in Shape
Have you thought about 2005 and what you're going to do this year?