The Mind of Boz

The short update

Matt — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 20:34:55 -0500

I just got in touch with a friend from college that I haven't seen since 1998. In passing, he asked what I'd been up to, so I gave him this list :

1999 - 2000 Grad school, Pittsburgh. Computer engineering, very cold.
2000 - 2001 San Diego, working for big corp.
2001 - 2002 laid off, got a job at a ski resort in Utah for the olympics
2002 - 2003 San Diego, working for a smaller corp
2003 - 2005 started a company with a couple guys from grad school. Lots of fun
2005 - 2007 random contract and startup jobs in SD. Started dating Lindsay
2007 - 2008 moved to Seattle with Lindsay (seemed like a good idea at the time)

Looking it over, I have to say that I'm pretty proud of the breadth of stuff. Moreover, I love my life.

Just thought I'd share.

Fed up with recruiters ?

Matt — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 19:23:09 -0500

Is it national tech recruiters month or something?

Seriously, I've gotten about three recruiter emails a day for the last 2 weeks. It's ridiculous. And a little flattering. But more ridiculous.

The worst part is, most of these emails are totally vacuous. Here's a quote :

Hi Matt,

I am a technical recruiter working with some clients in both the Seattle and Bellevue area. I think your background is very interesting and I would love to discuss a new opportunity with you. Let me know when it is a good time to talk.

Looking forward to it,

Robin

That, followed by 30 lines of signature. Oh, and don't look at the code. I copied the html directly from the mail, but it hurts. It's got a font tag.

So after a phone call and three emails yesterday, I decided something needed to be done. And LindsayDayton gave me the answer -- an open letter! So here it is A message to recruiters. Go take a gander. Then write your own! Maybe together we can stem the tide of time-wasting, content-free crap flung around the internet. Well, maybe not, but at least we can point at it and snicker.

Random thoughts on a Saturday morning

Matt — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 14:55:00 -0500

So I watch the things that hober shares via google reader. And all of the people (that I know of) who watch the things that I share, also watch what hober shares. So is there really a point in me clicking the share button on something that I see in hober's shares?

LindsayDayton thinks that maybe my mom will one day use Google Reader and not watch hober. Sad thing is, that's the only person I could think of either.

Why doesn't everyone use RSS? There should be big articles in newspapers and magazines! Oh, wait, RSS is killing newspapers and magazines. . . Now I get it.

Turducken

Matt — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 04:22:00 -0500

At some point I might do a full thanksgiving review -- all the people we saw, the family madness, etc etc. For now, I think everyone should see a picture of the Thanksgiving bird(s).

That's right, it's three birds in one! A stuffed chicken, stuffed into a duck, stuffed into a turkey. All lined with stuffing to create the most ridiculous symbol of capitalism gone deliciously awry. The Turducken. I admit, I've wanted to try one of these since I saw it on Slashdot in 1999. And it was gooooood!

It snowed!

Matt — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 03:18:38 -0500

As I'm sure many of you have seen on the news, or on Lindsay's blog, the weather here lately has been pretty crazy.

When I walked out of the LSAT on Saturday morning, it was snowing. And not a little, but serious, "yeah, I'm a snowstorm, what are you going to do about it" snow. Not a whiteout or a blizzard or anything, but definitely white flaky stuff from the sky. Weird weird weird.

Then it proceeded to rain. Now everyone knows it rains in Seattle. I mean, people talk about Seattle and they're like, "blah blah Starbucks, blah blah rain, blah blah Amazon, blah blah rain, blah blah Microsoft, blah blah rain, blah blah UW Pine" Ok, so no one uses Pine anymore. But all the rest is true. Anyhow, the point is that this was like RAIN. Like break out the hip boots rain. Like soaked to the skin in the time it takes to get the mail rain. Not the grey drizzly, misty pseudo-rain that you expect in Seattle. I was having Tulane flashbacks!

Today I find out, it's the most rain in recorded history for this city, or some ridiculous statistic like that. So there, I'm not crazy for thinking the levies are going to break.

Oh, and I took some pretty pictures while it was snowing. Like this one

Law School? Seriously?!?

Matt — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 00:12:27 -0500

I think I've lost my mind.

I mean, I've been making noise about law school for a while, probably a couple of years. Quiet noise -- the occasional comment or implication -- but noise nonetheless.

Due to a confluence of events, today, yes today, I'm seriously considering it. My fulltime contract runs out on 12/1. The last LSAT you can take to apply for Fall 2008 is 12/3. The last day to register for that LSAT is Friday. On top of that, the 28th best law school in the country is around the corner from here (University of Washington), and they have a Technology and Intellectual Property track.

On top of everything else, I feel adrift career-wise. Looking at my resume you either see the most qualified generalist in the world, or a jack-of-all-trades. I was talking to a guy in Seattle who works for an interesting engineering company (F5 -- maker of the BigIP, for the geeks in the crowd). He was talking about an open position they have and we were feeling each other out for possible fit. He asked me what I want to be doing. I didn't have a good answer. In fact, I didn't have any answer at all. I really have no idea what I want to be doing. None of the things that I'm qualified to be doing look all that interesting, and everything that does look interesting requires a depth of knowledge that I don't have (and, honestly, am not interested in attaining).

And then there's law. The law in this country, as regards technology, appears to be a shambles. The tech is moving too quickly for the regulators. The regulators are trying to future-proof their policies and instead only manage to stifle innovation. Look at the DMCA. Look at e-voting machines. Look at the FCC's bandwidth auctions and how hard it is to even get a seat at the table. (Some day I'll come back and add links, for now I'm on a rant...) Someone needs to help these people. I don't know if I'm that guy, but I think I could at least lend a hand.

Of course, there's also the flip-side. 3 years of school. Probably about $200K of debt. On top of the cost of not working for 3 years. Maybe moving again (I'm told that the school you go to makes a real difference, so if you get into a top school, you move). Not buying a house for a good long while. And when it's all said and done, ending up a peon at some giant law firm for a couple years while you establish yourself.

So far, in the thiry-odd posts to this blog, I haven't really taken a poll or asked for opinions. For that matter, I don't really even know who-all is out there listening. Well, now I'm asking. Dear Lazyweb -- should I go to law school?

Halloween costume

Matt — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 14:05:25 -0400

I don't understand why every child that came to the door thought I was a ninja. . .

I was supposed to be Barclay !

What I learned on my first "Seattle" bike commute

Matt — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 14:06:04 -0400

It's raining today. I took my bike to the office, and I learned a few things on the way :

Track pants are not rain pants. Rain pants are waterproof; track pants are not.
When it comes to fenders, you get what you pay for. Cheap fenders result in a wet ass.
If you put your rain slicker over your backpack, your laptop will be dry but your shirtfront will be wet.
When your commute is under 10 minutes, you can't depend on pedaling to warm you up.
Wear gloves or your hands will be very cold.

On top of all these important lessons, I learned that if you leave half and half in the office fridge long enough, it will go bad. Fortunately, I live in Seattle and I have no less than 4 coffee choices on this block!

Back to work with my warm coffee and wet ass.

Geek moment

Matt — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 13:21:00 -0400

Every so often I have a moment of 'wow, she's perfect for me'. Enjoy this snippet of an IM conversation (regarding my new Shure E3C headphones, which quite literally rock my world):

Boz@10:11 my ears are asymmetrical

Lindsay@10:12 ahahahahahahaha

boz@10:12 one needs the large foamy

boz@10:12 the other gets the medium

Lindsay@10:12 lopsided!

boz@10:12 seriously

Lindsay@10:12 my lopsided boyfriend!

boz@10:12 it's falling out of my left ear

Lindsay@10:12 awesome

boz@10:12 very sad

Lindsay@10:12 but also

boz@10:12 NFYB

Lindsay@10:12 hysterical

Lindsay@12:12 what's nfyb?

boz@10:12 not for your blog

Lindsay@10:12 hahahahaha

Lindsay@10:12 better and better

Lindsay@10:12 you're lopsided AND defensive about it!

Lindsay@10:12 a comedy writer's wet dream

You know, as I read it back, maybe it's not for my blog either. . . oh well, too late.

Internet people rock

Matt — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 15:19:09 -0400

Just when I thought I'd seen every random piece of software ever.

http://regex.info/blog/2007-06-27/503

This guy decided that one particular menu in lightroom was annoying. So he hacked it. Then he built a web app to generate custom menus so other people could hack it. How awesome is the internet?

As it happens, that menu is annoying, so I went looking for hacks and the rest, as they say, is history.