@Ancient Dragon: Congratualtions on your retirement! Hopefully, I'll make it to see my retirement. I'm glad to see all of that SS tax going to good use!
I don't think I could stay away from coding for very long, so even in retirement, I would have to write the occasional program... keeps me sane. We have way too many asshats at our local walmart, would never work there. I think I'd spend retirement backpacking the Yukon if my health allowed it. My father retired not too long ago, but it is one of the non-stop types, so he always finds random things to do. I took my daughter out of daycare and I am paying them to keep her during the day now, mainly so they can get some quality time with her... my parents love having her around. She keeps them young.
@big_k105: Congrats to you as well, for graduating with your BS degree. Last I heard from you, I thought you were going to Philly. Everything happens for a reason man, I'm sure in time you will end up where you need/want to be. I actually accpeted a job offer out of state, with the North Carolina Dept of Justice... the day I turned in my resignation my employer (as of two DoD contractors ago) offered me more money to hang around. I notified NC-DoJ about the increase in salary and unfortunately, they couldn't match it. That same night, I found out about #2 coming around the corner so we opted to stay. Then a few months later my department was subcontracted to yet another DoD contracting company, where my salary was raised significantly and better benefits were provided. No matter how much you try to get away from your hometown, something always draws you back... I'm not entirely sure what it is, but I've left here three times and each time came back. One day, I'll make it outta here! Sounds like you have a fulfilling job and an interesting project to work on. As far as my beowulf cluster, I have the hardware for a low-end prototype (just six nodes), I'm trying to decide on operating system at this point... looking at parallel knoppix and CentOS. Two nodes were recently yanked because I needed a dedicated Solaris x86 box so I could support source code on that platform, and one was used for Windows 2003 Enterprise for support of a few active directory programs I've been cooking up, which is also used as a printer and file storage server. I was wanting to use the cluster to model hurricanes and tornados... was also considering applying it to protein folding projects. But basically, I just want to get a simplified, scaled down system running... then purchase identical hardware with top of the line specs to have a production level cluster.
@Jimbo: Congrats on your degree as well! Shhh! Don't tell the Linux nazis you are working for Microsoft.
Just kiddin'. I've thought about having an IIS web server runing over w2k3 to support ASP.Net development and a few web applications that I want to write in C#. Silverlight looks promising, I may even tinker with it a bit. Halo 3 started collecting dust when Call of Duty 4 was released. I haven't gotten into Mass Effect yet, but contemplated it.
@Benoit: How many more years do you have to go before you graduate? How about writing software to solve mathematics problems, you get both of your fixes in one project.
Good luck on the Cell processor...
@Captain119: Again, welcome to the community! We're glad to have you aboard!
@dr.p: PFO is a hidden addiction that integrates itself into your everday life. I used to have withdrawals when I didn't visit the site. I gradually weened myself off, but hope to be more pro-active in weeks to come. Sucks that you were robbed at knife point, glad you are okay. In my state, we have the Castle Law... as to where we have the right to kill anyone that threatens us or our property. I'm sure there is some fine print to it, but in your case it would have been justifiable homicide if you defended yourself (had you had the opportunity to do so). You write your own music? Wouldn't mind hearing some of it... Sounds like you have a tons of ongoing projects as well, the hybrid web-browser/data management program in C++ is particularly interesting to me. I opted to use Drupal over Joomla for a content management system on a few sites I am working on. Looking to overhaul a few other sites soon. What were the books you were writing about? I usually get my gambling fix at the local casinos while playing roulette or craps... glad to see someone is saving their money.
Good luck on the essay contest!