Lots of Changes Since the New Year, and Without Any Resolutions to Speak of

January 31, 2008

Wow, it's been a crazy start to 2008. We're at the one month mark, and already I've seen substantial things happen in my life. I've decided to change career paths, migrated this site to a new server, reconfigured my workflow and technology to get serious about GTD, and even (sigh, yes it's true) started using Twitter.

The best part of all this is that it's all been positive change that happened naturally rather than via some artificial new year resolutions. I don't mean to suggest that I didn't take stock of my life at the end of 2007 and make plans according to what I would like to change this year, but I think I have had a more serious assessment of myself, rather than the "I want to lose weight" kinds of resolutions.

Oh, but hey, I have lost 6 pounds this month, too. :-)

I'll do a post on each change over the next week, but to start with the most life changing one first....

Career Changes

I've been working in the news industry about two years now. Before that, I worked for a large academic library for a couple years. All of this has been web development, but it's been working within a non-technical domain. There's nothing inherently tech about news and libraries, though each industry has similar issues to deal with given the age we live in. Both are trying to "save" themselves as is sometimes said of them.

There are really cool things about working in that kind of industry. In fact, I'd say mostly positive things about each. Each field has to really depend on programmers and technologists now to plan and move going forward, so it's nice to be a developer in that kind of environment. I have friends who never want to leave. There are, however, a couple things recently that have made me want to look for new work.

One, I started a Second Life for myself. Seriously, this has been a first life altering experience for me, both personally and in terms of the kind of issues I'm interested in technically and intellectually. I also see there's a lot of work to be done marrying the web and virtual worlds as the two grow closer together in the future, and I believe my skills as a web developer might be put to good use in some way as related to Second Life or other virtual world development endeavors. I also see growth for myself there, having lots to learn about metaverse development.

Two, I've just grown tired of being the sole developer, or one of a handful of developers working on projects. It's very lonely work in many ways, made more so by working in industries that don't totally get or know how to support telecommuters, and the number of software enginners -- or developers with engineer-like tendencies :-) -- is very low. Again, I have friends that love the non-engineering quality of our work environment, but I'm at the point in my life where I want to be around more software developers or software engineers, working on interesting and compelling problems. In other words, something like virtual worlds and virtual world development are interesting because the issues themselves are interesting and complex, rather than having to come up with interesting solutions to normal or common problems.

So What's Next?

The short answer is "I have no idea."

The not-as-short-but-not-long-answer is... I let Rob my wonderfully cool boss (though he hates being called the boss) know that I'm going to start looking for other work. I have indeed applied at a company or two related to virtual worlds, and I'll report here if something works out. I will still be at WPNI until I find something, and everyone at WPNI has been gracious and awesome to not replace me until I find something new and exciting for me to do.

So nothing has really changed for now, but making up my mind to jump out and do something new has been pretty rewarding personally. I have a great new sense of purpose to my work, and focus follows from that purpose. And I'm enjoying all that I'm learning about Second Life, virtual worlds, and all that goes with building virtual worlds. Those who know me well know how aggressive I can be about learning when I get excited about something new, so each day seems new and interesting and fresh.

I'll try to share some of things I'm learning here, and also keep this blog updated as I make progress on the job hunt. It's been quite a year so far, even if only a month has passed. I can't wait to see what the other 11 months hold.

You Can Call Me Anders

January 24, 2008

What's in a name? According to Shakespeare not much, but I had a hard time picking my avatar's name when I first signed up for a Second Life account. Googling for "choosing a second life name" turns up various suggestions about picking a name for yourself in SL, but I couldn't find much writing about why someone chose their own particular name. So I thought I would write about what led me to choose the name Anders Falworth.

The first thing someone has to do when signing up for a Second Life account is choose a name. This name is unlike the usernames you have to choose for any other web site account in that it must be a first and last name. I almost always use some form of deryck when I sign up for a service depending on what's available -- I'm known variously as deryck, deryckh, and deryckhodge across Google, Flickr, Facebook, et al. Since I had to choose a last name other than my own, and given that deryck insert-other-last-name-here didn't seem to have the ring of my own name, I decided to just embrace a new world, a new me, and create a completely unrelated name from my own.

I literally spent 30 minutes at the account creation screen trying to think of a new name. At the time that I signed up, I wanted Second Life to be a diversion from work over the holidays. Something fun and immersive, like going on vacation digitally, but also a way to learn new things while playing. So the thoughts going through my mind were of all the things I had immersed myself in over the last 10 years -- music, comics, and sci-fi TV and film. And for some reason -- maybe given what the virtual world reminded me of -- I couldn't get the agent from the Matrix out of my head. All I could hear was "Mr. Anderson" with that snide, chiding tone. Then I mind jumped over to Battlestar Galactica and thought of the character Anders from that show. And Anders became the first name.

The last name was not a big choice for me. I scrolled the list trying various names until I liked the combination. Falworth seemed mysterious, adventurous, even a little dark maybe.

An email later to activate the account and here we are. It's funny... I've been called "Anders" so much in world, I'm starting to think of myself by that name somewhat. I guess it's a bit like IRC nicks. I've seen people on Samba Team answer in real life to either their given names or their nicks. If someone came up to me in real life and said, "Hey, Anders," I'd probably say hey back and start talking before it dawned on me that wasn't my real name. So it's okay... call me Deryck or Anders. I'll likely answer to either.

Developing a Second Life

January 16, 2008

Over the month of December, I signed up for a Second Life account. Okay, and yeah, I'm hooked. To say I'm hooked is an understatement of an understatement. Not that I mean to wax too dramatic about it -- those who know me well know I can be dramatic at times (!) -- but discovering Second Life has been like buying my first album, reading Flannery O'Connor for the first time, or even meeting my wife and knowing instantly I wanted to marry. That is to say, I know this is an experience that will change my life, and quite possibly my career. At the very least, I have a serious new interest that is shaping the kinds of technical questions and curiosities that I'm sure will spill over into my coding, writing, and general geeky endeavors.

And Second Life is just plain fun, too. Don't mean to forget that part.

So what does this mean? There will likely be posts cropping up here on my blog related to Second Life. I've started a Second Life Flickr page for my in-world photos (not much there yet, but I hope to get more interesting stuff up). And I most certainly will play with some ways to merge my web development interests with SL. What this means or what will come of this blending of the web and SL for me is still to be determined, but I think there's some interesting work still to be done in more closely marrying the web and Second Life.

Anyway, we'll see what comes of it all. I'm enjoying being in world, and excited about playing with SL related code, sites, and ideas. Look me up in world if you're an SL resident. I'm known as Anders Falworth in SL.

Hmmmmmm, I'm thinking there's also a post around the corner about why I chose that name.