I wanted to preserve this information while it is (relatively) fresh in my mind.

So, my friend Jimmy and I were talking tonight, and we got to chatting about the future. No, not more science fiction speculation. We were talking about what to do as recent UCLA graduates.

We agreed that we have absolutely no clue what to do next. We're just pushing blindly forward, hoping that everything will resolve itself in time. In particular, he felt that he lacked a certain sense of knowing oneself enough to be able to make any of these early career decisions that could change one's fate. Certainly, there were activities and jobs that he enjoyed. For example, he likes teaching. He enjoys playing video games. And he likes looking at the sweep of history. But none of these sentiments have been able to guide him in choosing a career path.

The question he posed then became one of finding defining characteristics, something that has remained consistent in his personal life. He settled on the idea that he likes to spend his time thinking up ideas and (whenever possible) putting them into practice. As Bruce Willis' character in Armageddon might say, he's the type that sits around thinking up shit. I suggested that the kind of job that might suit that habit, of sorts, might be similar to that of a television producer, pitching and developing the show ideas and getting the project set up. The examples that I blurted out were Gene Roddenberry and J. J. Abrams. (Go figure, I guess.)

Of course, I had trouble thinking up something to define myself, but I did eventually settle on something: I like to drive (when driving is involved, not just sitting in traffic or looking for the right exit--on open roads, say). Where driving is concerned, I like that sense of freedom, of sorts, to choose the destination and how I get there. I know, it doesn't sound related to anything. Let's take another self-description: I like to take existing ideas and to refine or combine them. In other words, I like having the freedom to exercise creativity in reaching a personal goal. If true, it might be seen in such things as my commitments to UCLA AIAA and my personal projects, such as my piano playing, art projects, and engineering projects. For example...

I have often remarked to Jon that it is he who was accomplishing the truly amazing shit in our Autonomous UAV project. He was uncovering the mysteries of multiplexing, micro-controllers, and software/hardware interfaces by building circuits from scratch. But when I made an accomplishment, it was something less complex, incorporating already existing technologies, but more flashy. The chief example was my Wiimote-controlled gimbaled camera that I wanted for the UCLA AIAA Blimp. Every system I used was developed by someone else; I just generated the software that coordinated the components. My talent, so to speak, was to identify technologies that I could combine to generate a product that I wanted and that I could then further refine.

Jimmy got to thinking that I might do well as some sort of consultant or product support kind of guy. Something where I might generate new ideas from existing ones.

Of course, whatever any of this means, no one really knows. In the end, we're probably just spouting introspective bullshit. But it was an interesting conversation, anyway.