By the way, the new issue of Wired magazine has much the same thoughts and may prove an interesting outline for how to give your kids the edge. The section is titled, "How To Raise A Master Of The Universe". It states it would cost $800K to raise a child to 18 and it itemizes such things as Chess Camp, Code Camp, and Chinese language immersion.

My friend Pete suggested reading a Purpose Driven Life. I've been tempted to buy it in the local BJs. I'm currently reading Covey's The 8th Habit and at the same time reading a book on the rise of Amazon.com. When I'm done with those, I will give it a shot.

So I spoke to a friend who graduated from UPenn. He says he doesn't think you can manufacture what an Ivy league education can give you without going there. He says that the name opens doors. My thoughts are this... in the world of the internet, the same doors or different but just as good doors could be open if you developed a piece of open source software that 100K people used. This may be a motivator for finishing my Nostalgia project. If I can open doors with it, my kids should be able to open the same doors by building out something that they dream up be it - a video game or something else. A complete piece of software shows a person how your mind works and what your capabilities are. Successful marketing and driving up a user base for that software shows that you not only have vision but leadership and salesmanship qualities as well.

Talk like this makes me feel like I should not be working a regular 9-5 right now. It makes me feel like my time would be better spent. I should take my savings and cash in my stock options and concentrate for a span of a few months on finishing several of my projects, writing business plans, networking, etc. My wife convinces me otherwise and I think she is right for now. It's a big undertaking and may swallow me alive if I try to do it full time.

For now, I will work with a 2 year window. This gives all of my options time to vest. I will try to find spare moments here and there to finish several projects and construct a business plan. I will train those around me to take my place in 2 years. I will clean up my documentation so all the projects/data extraction and reporting capabilities I've built at work can be handed off. Who knows, maybe this dot com I am working for now will feed my higher aspirations later. Then, I can prove that there are other ways to open doors than an ivy league education.