Depressing IT Job Prospects

[storkus at storkus.com]

Wow, I had no idea I would create such a thread!  Thanks to everyone for
their help!

To be honest, I'd love to have Alexander's job or something similar.  I
originally wanted to go into, and am still interested in, telecom,
networking, and sys admin and analysis.  I would *LOVE* to do embedded
stuff, like Software-Defined Radios, DSP filters, and so on, with my
love of radio (I have a ham radio license) and data, but I don't have
the math background and don't think I'm quite smart enough to go there
(I still remember the horrors of sine-cosine transformations!).

Barring that, any programming that doesn't require graphics (I have
enough trouble drawing stick figures :) such as databases and such would
interest me, along with drivers, kernel development, or just plain LAMP
stuff, which is where I'd probably aim myself since it's the shortest
route at the moment (besides the net admin).

I love to learn (as long as it's something I like), and IT fits me great
in that regard: computers have always been my first love.  I programmed
my old Color Computer 2 first in M$ BASIC, then in Motorola 6809
assembly, and then in some K&R C (ANSI C was fairly new at the time and
there wasn't a compiler yet).  In college I got exposed to Pascal (hated
it, "The Handcuff of the Programmer" I called it).  And after that I
dropped out.

The problem now is fixing that particular mistake from nearly 20 years
ago.  I have a lot of hindsight (including the Internet being public--in
college, I spent way too much time MUDing) and now I also have you guys
and all of your experience.

So thank you SO MUCH!!!

Mike

P.S. One language I don't know I want to really bad: Erlang!