The Big 3-Oh!

I spent the last week on Maui celebrating my 30th with the family. The wife and kids love it, well, who doesn’t right. I went to the beach (a lot), BBQ’ed, jumped off a few cliffs, trained Brazilian Jiu Jitsu with one of my lil’ brothers, 4-wheeled in the pineapple fields with another lil’ brother, ate a lot, slept even more, played Magic the Gathering, looked around at properties for sale, and generally had an amazing time. You know, I’ve never paid much attention to my age, though 30 seemed like a nice round number for reflection. A time to think about some of the more important things you’ve learned and an opportunity to measure accomplishments. I got in web application security, oops cgi security, professionally back in 2000, but had been doing a lot of amateur stuff since 92-93. Since then…

I’ve learned that:

• Possible does not mean probable and hard doesn’t mean valuable
• Its best to surround yourself with good people that are smarter than you are
• Great things are not accomplished through reason and compromise, but somehow progress is.
• One should be well-rounded in personally, professionally, and physically
• To enjoy the journey because there doesn't seem to be a destination
  

And I figured I’d take a different approach to measuring work…

IM Buddy List: 42
Address book contacts: 733
Sent email folder: 19,876
Public presentations: 64
Foreign countries visited: 5
U.S. States visited: 22
LinkedIn connections: 133
Articles/papers written: 16
Exploits developed: A few dozen
Number of press mentions: a couple hundreds, maybe more.
Thanked by organizations: A few dozen
Google vanity search: 85,200 links
Blog posts: 272
Certifications: 0
Websites hacked: A few hundred
Community organizations founded: 2
Buzz words/terminology invented: 6
Programming languages: 3
Companies founded: 1
Papers/articles/books read: Probably hundreds, maybe thousands
Books written: 0 (first is on the way)
Book forwards written: 2
Customers: Undiscolsed
Slashdot’ed: 5
College Degrees: 0