Yep, I fit all sorts of hats! :) But maybe because the company is small (Engineering = 100 folks?) rather than large. You have to wear a lot of hats. However I have also worked in a large firm, and while you wear less hats, there is still overhead as you say.

On the open-source front: well I'm *using* Open Source stuff now, I am completely neglient in giving back aside from filing one or two bug reports. I think contributing to CPAN is a start (provided I get some good ideas that someone has invented 90% of already), and I really need to persue one of my gaming projects all of the way through (I get tons of ideas and can't finish most of them because the new ones are more compelling) -- I'm pretty sure I can write some stuff folks will actually want to play. As I've said -- usually most of them get killed in the design and early-prototype phase.

Anyhow, I feel that giving back is really important... but it's hard to feel like looking at a computer after doing it 8+ hours during the week, especially in good biking weather! Regardless of what goes on, though, I do feel my skills are a little sharper for screwing-around on my own time, though there has got to be a better way.

How did you get to be "your own boss" in regards to (what I assume is) mostly Perl development? I think I would have excellent consulting (not to be confused with contractors that call themselves "consultants") and development skills, but to me, anyway, the hard part is finding clients and getting the business end straightened out. Admittedly, this is a long subject, and probably should be it's own meditation. Thanks for the input though. Good points.