Jefflog

When I quit my software job about a year ago, I had calculated that I would be away from the job market for at least the next two years, at which point Oliver would be attending school at least part time. Now with baby number three on the way, my return date has essentially been pushed back by another three years.

To be honest, I’m a little dismayed at the prospects of not working for another three years. I really valued the time I worked as a software programmer, even when just doing it for my own projects. (You could probably say especially for my own projects.) Attempts to do work in spare moments haven’t worked out well so far, since trying to do development in half-hour chunks doesn’t do it.

Yet I am optimistic that it will all work out in the end. I’ve already snagged a domain name for my software business-to-be: rascalsoft.com. There’s no need to type that in your browser yet, because there’s nothing there. I’m not even sure what I’ll be doing, although I’m considering a business in custom Mac OS X development. I’m still a newbie at Objective-C programming, but I’ve got three years of half-hour development increments to get accustomed to it.

I could always just get a traditional job, but even once all three kids are at school full-time, I’ll continue to be the one to pick them up from school and take care of the remaining family obligations, so it would have to be a position that would be very flexible. In all likelihood. that kind of position doesn’t exist, so starting my own business is the way to go. Listening to the Stack Overflow podcast has gotten me even more interested in being my own boss. I may not make a lot of money from the venture, but at least I’ll be back in the computer development scene that I enjoy so much.