Off Topic: Nostalgia...What I'd Do If I Didn't Have A Job

My plan would be to spend a month or two on finishing one of these projects, Nostalgia, before moving on to more data warehousing.

I've now been working pretty much non-stop since 1992. I like to think that all of my jobs have been challenging and that I'm still passionate in the work I do. Although, I'd say pressure and politics can wear down anyone without a strong personality/or faith in God. I've got side projects I'd like to devote a month or two on if I didn't have a job.

Used to be in the old days, you could think of an idea, build a piece of software, and possibly strike it rich. Such dreams are more challenging to meet now with such increased competition from everyone and their mother who can at least build a Visual Basic app. I still think if you come up with an idea of something that's not out there or offered, you can build it and gain fame because of it. That fame may translate into other opportunities or maybe service revenue for folks who want to customize your app. A good book on this topic is Cathedral and the Bazaar.

This app Nostalgia could be classified a iPhoto on steroids. It's a photo annotation app that I thought up one day when I was looking for a good idea to put my side project energies behind. My previous idea to build an app to share game pieces for national contests did not have a broad enough appeal.

This was also a good opportunity to combine my knowledge of data warehousing with my novice skills at Java development. In my opinion, knowing the business rules and the data is more important. However, it's nice when you have enough knowledge to put it all together.

I built a data model to capture all the elements of my application. I've written some code following the model view controller sample application in Phil Hanna's JSP 2.0 book. I've signed up on this web host and written a few modules of the app already. I'm trying to get a friend to help my build the application with me. For some reason, my side projects are all geared to meet a major deadline - my birthday.

As much as I've spent time on the code, I've also spent a lot of time writing up ideas on how the application might be used. The application is something that excites me. When I went to school, I dreamed of being a writer and becoming famous for writing books. In a way, the ideas for Nostalgia give me the opportunity to do two things. One is to use my computer science background to build and application. The other is to use my English / writing background to fill in the ideas about why this application would enrich life. I write a lot of scenarios - ala science fiction - on how a photo annotation application could serve so many purposes.

I'm babbling on. Leave it at this. I'm working on getting this side project developed so I can one day be more widely known and bring something of value to the community. I'd love to see a project of mine take off in open source land. The great feats I accomplish in my career have been like moving mountains but have not generated a lot of fame (although many of my friends and opportunities have come from this). If I didn't have a job, this is how I would fill all of my time unitil I financially had to get another job (family to feed and all) .