Tom Mast: Professional Vagrant MMXIII

The past 22 days have been a whirlwind. My lease in Muncie was up at the end of July and since then I've been roaming the state of Indiana. I had been gradually packing and moving stuff since the holidays, but it didn't really matter how much preparation I did. 50+ boomboxes, well over 500 records, and 7 bikes are always going to be a pain to move.

When I finally had my car packed with the final load I said my last goodbyes and hit the road with Lisbeth. Seeing the place I had spent so much time growing up in just fade away behind me was a weird, weird feeling. Memories of my entire career as an aspiring computer scientist filled my mind. My mistakes, my successes, enough to fill an entire book (OK, OK, my mistakes alone are enough).

I am more than happy with the education I received at Ball State. I loved every single one of my Honors courses, and regret not pursuing them in a more focused manner. I have my share of complaints about the CS department, but I feel comfortable with the well-blended knowledge of theory and application that I left with. My personal experiences with a handful of the CS professors have forever shaped my views on the way I approach personal learning, team-based interactions, and how to maintain an excellent work/life balance. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I felt way too often that I was being taught a CS equivalent of the Donnie Darko Fear/Love lifeline.

Our field moves way too fast for you to try and teach me using your slides from 10+ years ago, I'm sorry. 

Life since then has been one long interview process. I sometimes feel that I'm being too picky. I know where I want to work and I know the type of team I want to join. I've turned down potential offers that don't fit this criteria. I was in process at ThoughtWorks, but broke it off. I know I would love the work and it would be great for me professionally, but I just cannot do the 80% travel gig. I know I'll find the place that's right for me. 

Barring the lack of income my life rules right now. I wake up, play with Lisbeth, and then study or work on whatever I want to all day. Want to implement Boyer-Moore or play around with Elasticsearch? Go ahead! One of my goals for the summer was to complete 50 Project Euler solutions, but then I discovered CodeEval where your solutions are ranked based on running speed and memory usage. I set myself a goal to break the top 100 and just recently accomplished it (loadstar81).

I've also been running/cycling on a consistent basis. Growing up we had an old, out of service railroad track right down the road that we used as a walking trail. This has since been converted into a legitimate bicycle trail called the Pumpkinvine Nature Trail. 

I'm usually not the biggest fan of running, but taking Lisbeth on this trail is awesome. She stays right next to me, even off the leash. While I crave the bustle and technology scene of a big city, it's had to argue with this.