"Chance Favors The Prepared Mind." - Louis Pasteur

When I was much younger interning at Merrill Lynch, I was given a Franklin Planner and sent to time management classes. The methods learned there have stayed with me through my career. These days, the planner is produced by a merged company called Franklin Covey. Each day, there is a quote from a famous writer, scientist, or other type of luminary. The last couple of days have had sayings with related messages. I included one at the beginning of this entry.

I believe I'm living proof that chance favors the prepared mind. I have followed a pretty consistent regimen of having ideas, reading a lot, thinking about things, and at the end of the day, producing systems that are well thought out. For my efforts, I have always been gainfully employed and always have found a way to solve problems I've been presented with. The real tests are still ahead as I build more and more of my own things.

What are examples of a prepared mind? I make sure to read about and work on my craft a little each day. I sketch out a side project that has enough breath of scope that I can excersise a comprehensive battery of skills focused on building a cohesive system. I try to convince my friend to assist in fleshing it out. I plan with him to releaase it on source forge in the next few months. Down the road, I will either build the system out of a profitable solution or re-use well thoughout, reusable libraries to build a different solution gaining either fame/reputation or money or both along the way. When this becomes old hat, I will call on my youngest nephews and relatives interested in programming and apprentice them into defining a repeatable process for software innovation and entrepreneurship by using strategy, imagination,  instinct, and skills built by a lifelong dedication to mastery of this craft.