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Finally upgraded to the latest version, so I figured I’d change themes too.  The upgrade process turned out to be far easier than I expected.  If I remembered any UNIX scripting from undergrad, I’d automate it.

I spent part of my Sunday running through the woods shooting at friends and strangers.  The place: Outdoor Adventures Paintball.  The occasion was a friend’s 29th birthday.  Paintball has changed quite a bit since I first tried it as a sophomore in college.  There are college and professional leagues now (my alma mater apparently has quite a good team).  There are corporate sponsors.  They even have TV coverage on ESPN2 and the Versus network.

For novices like us, it was a great time.  We teamed up against a group of what looked like undergrads from the University of Maryland.  In three rounds of matches (3 games per match),  we won each 2 games to 1.  Usually it was by killing all of them off, but at least a couple of times we captured their flag and moved it all the way down the field.  The “center flag” variant of the game (one flag midfield that a team must capture and move forward through their opponents) was our least favorite.  We had a really long field for it in the second match, and our strategy didn’t work that well at first.  The one thing I would differently the next time is buy more ammunition.  Even though you have to pull the trigger for each shot, I ran out of ammunition before our third match was over.

I saw this production of Macbeth this afternoon with my friends Jen and Alban.  We were rewarded for our wait in the freezing cold (for standing room tickets) with actual seats for the show.  Thanks to Alban (I owe you big for this one), yours truly got a front row seat to the show.  Directed and produced in large part by Teller (of Penn & Teller), it was anything but your typical Shakespeare production (if there is such a thing).  I’m no aficionado of magic, but they pulled some incredible tricks in this show.  People appeared and disappeared before our eyes.  We saw fake blood which looked uncomfortably real.  I knew we were in for quite a ride when the show began with a Folger Shakespeare Library staffer stabbed through the back while reading us an announcement from the stage.  This doesn’t even include the excellent acting, the great fight choreography, the sound effects and percussion.

Instead of management and code, I’ll just be writing code (at least for now). Today, I started a new job at a small consulting firm in Virginia with a software lab that wants to start putting out products.

Today consisted of the environment configuration and filling out of forms typical of a first day.  Most of the last half of the day was taken up by a boot camp.  I found it to be a very enlightening how-to on consulting, as well as an intro to the company’s culture.

Barack Obama spoke at length yesterday on the issue of race in general and his former pastor in particular.  If you haven’t already seen and heard the speech, or read the transcript, I encourage you to do so.  There is no soundbite that can do justice to the importance and brilliance of his message.  If there was ever a politician who could legitimately argue that he’s a uniter and not a divider, it is Barack Obama.  I only hope it helps him win in Pennsylvania.

I’ve been reading a lot of complaints about the current state of computer science education lately.  This post makes a reasonable attempt at summarizing the different ideas around what sort of graduates these programs should produce.  I’ve been in industry long enough that my CS program hadn’t switched to using Java as the initial language when I started.  I agree with Brian Hurt and Chris Cummer about the value of a computer science degree.

The right courses in a CS degree amount to a toolbox of concepts that you can use to solve whatever real-world problem you’re facing.  The most recent example of this happened on the job.  We had an issue where some text files being downloaded for storage in a database kept causing failures in a process.  Because of how the process was implemented, there was no way to pin the cause of a failure on a particular line of the file.  The files in question are regularly more than a gigabyte in size, so manual inspection wasn’t an option.  The minimal understanding I have of how compilers work enabled me to direct my staff to build a parser, so we could validate the input file before running the process against it.  Without a CS background, it’s highly likely that I don’t come up with a solution at all (or a really bad implementation of a parser).

If I had it to do over again, I would have spent more time in my CS program getting better depth in compilers, operating systems, and other areas.

Computer science isn’t perfect, but it’s relatively young as a field compared to disciplines like law or medicine.  There are probably things that should be changed, but I think the fundamentals are good.

I turned 34 today. I suppose I’m officially in my “mid-30s” instead of my early 30s now. Other than that, it doesn’t seem different at all from any of my other post-30 birthdays.

I did pick up a new toy for my birthday–an 8GB iPod nano.

If a single word could define my 2007, it would be “travel”.  I suspect it’s the biggest reason I enjoyed the year.  The places I had the chance to visit include:

• San Jose, CA
• San Francisco, CA
• Portland, OR
• Seattle, WA
• Vancouver, BC (Canada)
• Orlando, FL
• Dallas, TX

There were a couple of short road trips to Pennsylvania as well.

Looking back at the five things I wanted to accomplish this year, I finished two: taking two full weeks off, and forming an LLC.  The latter should play a large part in what 2008 will be like for me.  The three things I didn’t accomplish last year go back on the list for this year:

• Learn a new programming language/product. I ended doing nothing at all with Eiffel last year.  This year, particularly with the LLC, I’ve been thinking about specializing in a product.  When I worked for Lockheed-Martin, I specialized in the customization of Community Server.  I’ll either go back to that, or look at a technology from Microsoft (BizTalk, SharePoint, etc).  If I learn another programming language, it will probably be something like Python.
• Re-learn the piano. I hardly played at all last year.  I’m glad my ability to read music hasn’t disappeared.  I’m not sure what it will take to get me practicing regularly again, but I’ll figure something out.
• Study the Bible more regularly. I’ve started using online devotionals and religious podcasts to jump-start this.

One brand-new goal for this year is to increase my involvement in software development training.  Last year, I started an informal learning lunch program at work.  My original intent was to give the consultants that work for us multiple opportunities to transfer their knowledge to our permanent staff.  I ended up preparing and presenting on a wide variety of topics myself.  The program has been very well-received by the staff, and I’ve enjoyed assembling and giving presentations on best practices and technologies.  At the suggestion of friends & family, I’ve decided to pursue part-time openings as a technology instructor.  I’m scheduled to interview with a local community college for an adjunct position this month.  It will be the first work I do for my LLC if I’m accepted.

I wish all my readers a happy holiday season!