The Mind of Boz

I think I've lost my mind.

I mean, I've been making noise about law school for a while, probably a couple of years. Quiet noise -- the occasional comment or implication -- but noise nonetheless.

Due to a confluence of events, today, yes today, I'm seriously considering it. My fulltime contract runs out on 12/1. The last LSAT you can take to apply for Fall 2008 is 12/3. The last day to register for that LSAT is Friday. On top of that, the 28th best law school in the country is around the corner from here (University of Washington), and they have a Technology and Intellectual Property track.

On top of everything else, I feel adrift career-wise. Looking at my resume you either see the most qualified generalist in the world, or a jack-of-all-trades. I was talking to a guy in Seattle who works for an interesting engineering company (F5 -- maker of the BigIP, for the geeks in the crowd). He was talking about an open position they have and we were feeling each other out for possible fit. He asked me what I want to be doing. I didn't have a good answer. In fact, I didn't have any answer at all. I really have no idea what I want to be doing. None of the things that I'm qualified to be doing look all that interesting, and everything that does look interesting requires a depth of knowledge that I don't have (and, honestly, am not interested in attaining).

And then there's law. The law in this country, as regards technology, appears to be a shambles. The tech is moving too quickly for the regulators. The regulators are trying to future-proof their policies and instead only manage to stifle innovation. Look at the DMCA. Look at e-voting machines. Look at the FCC's bandwidth auctions and how hard it is to even get a seat at the table. (Some day I'll come back and add links, for now I'm on a rant...) Someone needs to help these people. I don't know if I'm that guy, but I think I could at least lend a hand.

Of course, there's also the flip-side. 3 years of school. Probably about $200K of debt. On top of the cost of not working for 3 years. Maybe moving again (I'm told that the school you go to makes a real difference, so if you get into a top school, you move). Not buying a house for a good long while. And when it's all said and done, ending up a peon at some giant law firm for a couple years while you establish yourself.

So far, in the thiry-odd posts to this blog, I haven't really taken a poll or asked for opinions. For that matter, I don't really even know who-all is out there listening. Well, now I'm asking. Dear Lazyweb -- should I go to law school?

I don't understand why every child that came to the door thought I was a ninja. . .

I was supposed to be Barclay !

It's raining today. I took my bike to the office, and I learned a few things on the way :

• Track pants are not rain pants. Rain pants are waterproof; track pants are not.
• When it comes to fenders, you get what you pay for. Cheap fenders result in a wet ass.
• If you put your rain slicker over your backpack, your laptop will be dry but your shirtfront will be wet.
• When your commute is under 10 minutes, you can't depend on pedaling to warm you up.
• Wear gloves or your hands will be very cold.

On top of all these important lessons, I learned that if you leave half and half in the office fridge long enough, it will go bad. Fortunately, I live in Seattle and I have no less than 4 coffee choices on this block!

Back to work with my warm coffee and wet ass.

Every so often I have a moment of 'wow, she's perfect for me'. Enjoy this snippet of an IM conversation (regarding my new Shure E3C headphones, which quite literally rock my world):

Boz@10:11 my ears are asymmetrical

Lindsay@10:12 ahahahahahahaha

boz@10:12 one needs the large foamy

boz@10:12 the other gets the medium

Lindsay@10:12 lopsided!

boz@10:12 seriously

Lindsay@10:12 my lopsided boyfriend!

boz@10:12 it's falling out of my left ear

Lindsay@10:12 awesome

boz@10:12 very sad

Lindsay@10:12 but also

boz@10:12 NFYB

Lindsay@10:12 hysterical

Lindsay@12:12 what's nfyb?

boz@10:12 not for your blog

Lindsay@10:12 hahahahaha

Lindsay@10:12 better and better

Lindsay@10:12 you're lopsided AND defensive about it!

Lindsay@10:12 a comedy writer's wet dream

You know, as I read it back, maybe it's not for my blog either. . . oh well, too late.

Just when I thought I'd seen every random piece of software ever.

http://regex.info/blog/2007-06-27/503

This guy decided that one particular menu in lightroom was annoying. So he hacked it. Then he built a web app to generate custom menus so other people could hack it. How awesome is the internet?

As it happens, that menu is annoying, so I went looking for hacks and the rest, as they say, is history.