Part of this involves reviewing my library of books and pruning the "must keep" list down. As much as I would have loved to keep all my books I've ever read, I understand I do not have infinite space and frankly some of them stink. My library is primarily technically focused and while I enjoy fiction (B. Thor, V. Flynn, D. Silva, etc) most of those have transitioned over to the kindle/ipad.
My library is a catalog of my life. Pruning it is hard and getting harder. Some books have very little tangible value and most of them have such a high level of emotional value that I simply can't part with them. Working through them is a story of my life and it can tell a chronological story of my technical capabilities and capacity.
The first technical book I actually wanted and purchased was the TRS-80 Color Computer Programs book by Tom Rugg. I think I was seven years old at the time and I learned software programming by working through the exercises the book presented. I still have this (not this one mine is significantly more tattered and dog-earred) and I reflected on this last night.
Over the years I continued my technical quest focusing in on Math and Science. In School some of the most important books I've kept are the Math books which have always been prominent on my shelves. From Algebra to Calculus, and ending up at Div, Grad, Curl and all of that I've enjoyed math and science.
In college I focused in on semiconductors and then applied that knowledge to my career doing what? Design Automation. What's that? Software engineering with an emphasis on the Semiconductor IC design process. In short creating the tools and providing the technologies necessary to enable IC design engineers to design IC's. In short make magic!
I've been very successful architecting, designing, and leading international design automation teams for the past 15 years. I never had to worry about much, income or job security. And I believe it comes from a deep seeded passion to do the very best and work your ass off to meet your goals. I've been very blessed to have some unbelievably talented people working for me and have had some incredible managers and leaders who believed in me and what we could do. Often times this meant going out on a limb and trusting me.
In the last year I've been working on some new projects which scale well outside of the domain of IC Design Engineering. The book I've finished working through is Multidimensional Analytics and Metric Data Structures by Hanan Samet. While it's a heavy topic and loaded with difficult concepts this is where people and companies need get to in order to achieve a highly efficient supply chain. The topic deals with pulling various disassociated data sets and drawing meaning from it. Fascinating topic which I am having a blast with putting to work the principles it outlines.
So what the point of this? As I was cleaning and reflecting on the books which have helped shape who I am I came to realize this. You can run from truth about who you are, or you can embrace it and succeed. I am a technologist passionate about building scalable software solutions. Data is my friend and software development is the tools I use to manipulate that data. It's my passion and I look forward to the next chapter. The time to start is now.
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