Foxfield: a time to party, drink, and... program?

Today is April 29th, the day of the annual Foxfield Races. The races are a venerable UVa tradition when just about everyone takes time out of their rigorous schedules to convene on a field, party, get drunk and do crazy things, like getting paid for jumping in a trough full of piss (foxfield's "bathroom").

Having stayed up till 4 yesterday, I couldn't wake up in time to leave for the races this morning (everyone got up @ 7). Since I wasn't really looking forward to going anyways, I decided not to meet up with them there and instead do some programming in Rails.

So I'm programming in my backyard on my laptop and all these drunk students walk are walking home after the races. I have my ruby on rails book out, and this guy comes up and reads the title, and then exclaims "HEY! 3 Dollar Rails!" I replied with an "uh, yah... you got it."

Its times like that which make me realize how out of place I am, cause at that moment I realized the word "rails" means something entirely different than to the majority of the UVa population. When they hear it, they think cheap drinks; when I hear it, I think a cool programming tool. Guess that makes me a geek.

Ruby on Rails

If you haven't started using Ruby on Rails, you need to.

Although I still haven't mastered it, I have been absolutely AMAZED at how powerful it is. A couple vids to whet your appetite:

- creating a blog with ruby on rails in 15 mins
- ruby on rails web interface to flickr


I know this is old news for all you programming geeks out there, but just entertain me.

I think I'm going to retire @ 22...

So I've decided, I think I'm going to try & retire when I graduate from UVa. What does this mean? Well for starters, I'm not going to be looking for a job next year. I like this idea, since I've observed that looking for a job consumes a lot of students' time and energy. Preparing for interviews, writing a resume, flying to meet with employeers on "the street" in NYC, etc.

But retiring doesn't mean I'm going to quit life. In fact, it doesn't even mean I'm not going to be making money.

So what does it mean?

When I retire, I think I'm going to focus on doing what I love to do. Once I graduate college, I'll never again work for the money. Money might be one of the rewards for me doing what I'm passionate about, but it won't be why I'm doing it.

So what am I passionate about? I want to make a difference in peoples lives. I know, that sounds cliche, but the most rewarding experience for me is building stuff that others use. I love browsing the recent changes on BluWiki.org. And I've realized I love it because I see people getting value out of a site that I put out there. It's a great experience.

So, when I retire, I'm going to make something people love to use. It could be a website, or a robot. But it will be something. And I know that because I'm not going to stop until its happened.


All this begs the question, how much do I need to retire? Shay said several million. I really hope this isn't true, because I don't think I can come up with several million in the next year. But if things continue to go well, I think I can come up with 100-200k. Hopefully that should be enough, especially if the world pays me for doing what I'm passionate about later on. And heck, I know a lot of people who have retired on less.