I’m back in Kentucky after quite an adventure up into New England. On the way home I was able to stop and visit several friends, some of whom I haven’t seen in quite some time: Alex Priest, a friend I grew up with who is currently in DC (http://www.alexpriest.com), my best friend from college, Josh Schwartz, who is at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, and Mary Rood, one of a three-person clan during my stint at Friday Harbor Labs who is currently working with NIH inside Bethesda. These three people have, interestingly enough, had a huge influence in my life to date and it was a privilege of mine to be able to meet with them during my journey back south.
What is pressing now, though, is what I’m currently up to. My girlfriend insisted some time ago that I restart my blogging, and from her wishes I’ve decided to continue posting.
Unfortunately, a blog is only as interesting as the person behind it. My life, right now, isn’t interesting; it is actually quite boring. While some might argue that it is impressive, in today’s economy, that I’m collecting a paycheck after recently acquiring my undergraduate degree, I would argue that my current employment is menial at best and isn’t allowing me to explore opportunities to expand my knowledge or skillset.
A sidenote: I have a BA in chemistry. My employer performs several chemical processes and I had hoped to expand my chemistry knowledge during my employment, but realistically my duties have only included manufacturing and production. Still not bad, but not what I’m looking for. That being said, I’m thankful for the job and the opportunity, but it just isn’t what I’m looking for in life.
This is why, in the very near future, I fully expect to venture into my own business ideas. One of my biggest pet peeves about my current job is that it’s only 40 hours/week. What am I suppose to achieve in that much time?! My own business means I’m busy doing something I enjoy, working every hour that I’m awake, and expanding that as much as possible with a cup of coffee. Why start my own business? Four major reasons: I think I have good ideas, I feel I’m a good leader, I’m ready for my own challenges, and I’m tired of being bored at nights.
So, what type of business does Garrett build upon? Fortunately, I’ve been associated with a few Internet-based businesses in the past and I’m fluent in PHP5/MySQL framework. I’m not new to this field, though I will admit that my most notable contribution to the Internet is with Ikonboard, which doesn’t exist anymore (though to no fault of my own — the software had internal problems and suffered a demise about a year after I resigned as I was entering college). The modern changes to Internet dev work is something that I’ve been able to keep up with, for the most part. Ikonboard was coded in Perl, but since I’ve been so entranced with PHP for the last few years, my ability to code in Perl is certainly questionable; fortunately, it doesn’t matter, since coding in Perl as an Internet language isn’t exactly the most widely appreciated (nor desired) skill. PHP has the largest coding community, and it only makes sense that I build software in the language with the most people who can [be employed to] edit it.
So, my “notable” influence (Ikonboard) doesn’t even exist anymore. Sure, that’s a sore spot in my soul (I gave a steady two years to that project), but I’ve moved on. Or, rather, I am moving on — to something newer, better and greater.
I have a few ideas that I’m working through with one about to go into a limited BETA in the next week or so. I’ll expand upon that a bit in the near future, but even that isn’t my idée de génie. I’m still hoping that one is yet to come, possibly buried in my future list of plots that, right now, aren’t quite feasible. One in particular stands out, but it is missing some middle ground; I have a start and a finish, but the plot is still to be determined.
A successful, modern product is all contained in the execution. Is it useful, simple to use and does it attract new users? If so, you’ve got a winner. That’s what I’m working to create.