I'm reading more books at once than I've done since I was in my early 20s. Back then it was dangerous because I could get caught up in it and didn't have enough experience or environment to do anything with what I was reading. Now, here I am, 35 years old, with 15 years of doing computer science for money. There the Internet is. It's a medium that can challenge both my love of writing (if I could make a living at it, I'd rather be a writer) and my love of programming. I can create systems with a soul. Also, I've got enough monetary breathing room for a short sabbatical where I plan to reinvent myself. With a bunch of reading behind me (I'm still reading The Tipping Point - about how social epidemics work, Head Rush AJAX - a guide to Web 2.0 style applications, Genius Denied - a story about how to handle the pace of gifted children in a school environment that doesn't let them accelerate, a SQL Server Business Intelligence book, and 2 PHP and Ruby guide to building Ecommerce applications). I plan to focus on deliverables in January.

First, I want to put together a business plan for RestorationThrowdown.Com.  I had a business plan developed in Penn State with 3 other colleagues for an idea I had called GamePieceBroker.Com. The idea was to build a site where people could list their McDonalds Monopoly game pieces. We could broker winning combinations of game pieces even if they were disbursed across coasts. We would collect demographic info, cross sell items, advertise with banners. My other colleagues really added a great deal of credibility to the plan. I hope to use that as a template for a usable business plan that I can shop around as well as add as content for a sort of How-To Build A Social Network Community tutorial site.

A business plan is one deliverable. I've also started building up LockAndKeyId.com. The idea is to build a site that can collect information from users that can help to enhance the content of other related sites. In this case, I have pictures of keys but not pictures of the cars the keys go to. I have the information of which keys go with which cars.  I want to build a site so I can capture the pictures of the cars that go with the keys. The sites are separate but they will provide pieces of information that each needs.

I'll also be working on a coporate web site for a friend. He builds really elegant, complex business intelligence solutions based on some really involved mathematical theories. It will be a cool thing to build because you can see with things like Google Analytics how well you are representing a person and drawing people to his special talents.

Anyway, I'm off to take a drug test. I'm starting a 3 month contract doing process analysis for an energy market related company. It would be great if I could help improve the delivery, reliability, and efficiency of energy by untangling some convoluted systems into simple, elegant, mashupable flows.

2007 is going to be exciting, independant, and in the words of my new favorite TV show How I Met Your Mother's character Barney (played by Neil Patrick Harris)... It's Gonna Be Legend... wait for it...and I hope you're not lactose intolerant... because the word is... dairy.