Introspection and Prognostications: A look back at 2008 and towards 2009

Introduction

“10, 9, 8, 7 . . .” The familiar countdown was being chanted by my family in the living room. As we watched the ball drop in a particular elegance that only an 11,875 pound ball sliding down a 77-foot pole can[1. Wikipedia], I paused a moment to quickly reflect upon 2008. It was a big year for me and I feel satisfied as the fireworks light up the New York City skyline. Now that all the celebrations are over, I’d like to take a more formal look back on my year and think about what is in store for 2009.

2008

It was a very big year, indeed.  In May, I graduated from the Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts.  My experience there was very rewarding and I enjoyed every minute of it.  It did more for shaping who I am today than anything else in my life.  The breadth and depth of my knowledge and the sharpened keenness for scientific inquiry is due totally to the quality and quantity of intelligence found there—truly su generis talent.  During my last year, my speculative essay about the future of technology was published in Folio, the school literary magazine.  My last semester was the best yet and I took many classes I enjoyed—including two Dr. Beier and Dr. Dalling classes, Dr. Feske, Dr. Findley and, of course, Mr. Hennigan.  I was bestowed the great honor of delivering the graduation speech.  Entitled “To Buddies,” I reflected upon my LSMSA experiences and the transient friends at my previous school compared to the true, lasting friendships I made at LSMSA.

This year also marked the beginning of my college career.  Initially, I had planned on going far, far away, but money kept me close to home.  I enrolled at LSU in the honors college as a computer engineering student.  One of the unique things about LSU is that it’s totally free and I was able to transfer in with about 32 hours of credit, effectively eliminating almost two semesters.  So far, I’ve become an active member in the LSU College Republicans and Purple Haze, the LSU Ultimate team.  I’ve also enjoyed working on campus at LSU’s award-winning Information Technology Services.  I work in the Network Infrastructure division where I help out with DNS and DHCP.  Mostly, I work on the web applications they use—some open source, some in-house productions.  I’ve even been a part, albeit small, of the Louisiana Optical Network Initiative, an amazing supercomputing project in Louisiana.  This has been a very rewarding experience and I’ve learned a tremendous amount.  My employment there was the inspiration for my first major article, “How to: Introduction to Splunk Indexing,” and I’m sure many more to come.

Outside of academics, this year saw an increase in my freelance work.  I thank my wonderful clients for their business.  If you need any voice work done for TV or radio, see Scotty Mac, the 175 a month man, for some wonderful voice acting.  I also worked with Chase Swindler, an old friend of mine, on the Mardi Gras Ultimate site.  The Mardi Gras Tournament is one of the biggest in the country, and my friends from Turbodogs, the Baton Rouge Ultimate Club, asked me to help build them a site.  Chase did the design work with me.

I also got involved in two projects.  The first, NewAperio, is a startup company I founded with fellow LSMSA student Evan Cordell.  We plan on releasing a few web apps, so stay tuned.  The second is Noteflood, which is a ongoing project that I was invited to join as the SEO manager.  I’m really excited about the direction that project is taking and we have big things planned ahead!  You can follow the project on Twitter and fan it on Facebook.  I’d appreciate any comments or suggestions for Noteflood!

At the beginning of 2008, I made a resolution to raise my GPA and get into a decent college.  LSMSA killed my high GPA because it’s a top 10 school.  After I acclimated,  I was able to raise it back up.  Check part one.  While I was fairly disillusioned with LSU at first, I’ve accepted it as a decent school—all of my honors professors were incredible and it finally made it into the top tier of schools [2. US New and World Report].  Check off 2008′s resolution.

2009

While there won’t be any major transitions as in 2008, there are a few things I’m excited about.

At LSU, I’ll be starting my major courses, which is always exciting.  Finally I’ll be able to move into true engineering courses.  I’m also looking forward to the Ultimate season, which should be a good one for LSU.  My goals here are to keep up my first-year GPA (good start already) and be one of the vital freshmen for Purple Haze.  For sophomore year, I plan on studying abroad.  I’m not sure if this will fall in 2009 or not, but it’s definitely a goal of mine for this next academic year.

I also plan on picking up several more freelanced clients.  I’m already looking at one and two more potentials.  NewAperio should finally get off the ground once Evan finishes at LSMSA and we should release at least one major product.  I expect Noteflood to finally launch and to instantly capture a fair market share, despite the fierce competition.  I’m also looking for an internship.  For this, I’m diving into the extensive network of LSMSA graduates on LinkedIn.  I’m hoping to find one at a major technology corporation.  If not, my job at LSU ITS remains.  My goals here are: grow freelancing; startup NewAperio; see Noteflood flourish; intern somewhere.

Conclusion

I’m looking forward to 2009 and I know it’ll be a great year.  What are your plans and resolutions for 2009?  From me and my family, I wish you a happy and prosperous New Year!