As always, tilly you have some excellent points. I decided today that it's time to go back to school and will be filling out an application for UMass Boston this weekend. I'll probably only do 1 class a semester for a while, but that's better than nothing!

I've been on the perl jobs list pretty much since the start. That is my gauge of the perl jobs waters, and I'm happy to report that the water is definitely getting warmer. Unfortunately, nearly all the jobs posted are not in the New England area. If I was in CA I'm confident I could have gotten a new job a long time ago. But I'm in Boston, which has been slower to recover from the tech job losses in the last few years. It's picking back up, but the volume (for perl anyway) is still much smaller. Now if I was a Java guru ...

I don't think I've looked at job boards in months. I occasionally troll for "perl" in Boston but I don't waste more than a few minutes doing so. I read the Ask the Headhunter article you referenced, and completely agree with Nick's conclusion. BTW, I highly recommend his email newsletter to everyone. He has some spot on advice regardless of your specialty.

Finally, long term I would love to work for myself. But I'm not there yet, and will probably finish school before I try striking it out on my own. What I'm trying to do now is start some small projects I can work on the side that could turn into full-time ventures. Again, that's all in the future. I have a family to think about, which unfortunately limits my entrepreneurial abilities.