mattbelcher.com

I finally completed my new blog system. I rewrote everything in Django, which is a lot nicer than my old, semi-broken JSP-based Lumberjack. Unsurprisingly, web frameworks have advanced considerably in the last 6 years. For example, I spent a week adding RSS to my old system and it never worked exactly right. I always had problems with XML generation, escape characters, etc. To compare, I just added RSS to this new blog in a few hours and it works perfectly. You can subscribe to the RSS feed by adding this feed to your favorite news aggregator. I like Google Reader, but it should work fine with anything.

A lot has changed in my life since my last post. My son, Thomas, was born. His doing wonderfully, although at about 3 months he had to go into the hospital with a heart condition called dilated cardiomyopathy. He's doing much better now since he has responded well to the medical treatment. We're continually monitoring it, but he's definitely out of the scary zone. There's even a possibility he might just grow out of it.

I also quit my PHD program and took a job in industry. I was repeatedly frustrated by my lack of publications, despite several submissions. I concluded that given my poor publication rate, I was unlikely to get the kind of research-oriented job I was looking for on graduation, and I really wasn't interested in a pure teaching position. That, combined with the need to earn more money and get on with my life since my family expanded, pushed me out into the workforce. I took my MS in Computer Science and started applying for jobs. Amazingly, I was offered every position I interviewed for, including software development positions at Motorola, Google, and Volition (a video game company). I eventually decided to take a job in downtown Chicago with Allston Trading, a small automated trading firm. I've really enjoyed my last 10 months at Allston. I've always been interested in financial markets, and electronic trading is finally mature enough that a programmer like me can easily try to beat the market with algorithms. It is hard work, but the amount of money you can make with a success can be incredible. I've also found my boss and co-workers to be smart, capable people.

As you can guess, quitting grad school, moving to a new city where we have few friends, and starting a new job has been stressful. Our patience has been stretched pretty thin, especially since we've had such little success finding a nanny or cleaning person to help relieve some of the pressure in our household. Nevertheless, our families have been as supportive as they can be from 1500 miles away.

I'm looking forward to posting a lot more now that my blog is finally the way I like it. Keep checking back frequently and feel free to leave comments.