Lee Nau

This weekend is my 20 year high school reunion (Class of 1989 – Payette High School, Payette, Idaho). I only have regular contact with one of my former classmates, who has been my best friend for the better part of three decades. Apparently, I’ve been missed, although I haven’t spoken a word to more than three people I went to school with since we flung our red and white tassels to the other side of our caps (yeah, because they banned throwing the caps that year).

What have I done since high school?

1. Joined the US Army. Got out early.
2. Got married. Got out early.
3. Fathered twice. A son and a daughter. Geniuses both.
4. Went to the University of Idaho. Studied music and foreign languages. Got out late without a degree.
5. Moved to the Silicon Valley. Still here.
6. Started building web sites in 1993. Still doing it.
7. Joined a company. Built some cool stuff. Got laid off. Rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat.
8. Started a few web sites. Some of them are still around.
9. Traveled a little. Should have traveled more.
10. Experienced triumphs, setbacks, bliss, and heartbreak. Still marching along.

What am I doing next?

1. Turn 50 Words into something amazing.
2. Craft some of my ideas into fun, useless web applications.
3. Take my writing more seriously and do it consistently.
4. Get my passport stamped—one country for each birthday I passed in the US.
5. Add more characters to the story of my life.
6. Finish some of the songs I started years ago.
7. Make every effort to smack ninjas around as much as possible—my obligation as a Pirate.
8. Keep learning cool stuff—like the tango, acoustic guitar, sea kayaking, and photography.
9. Stay in touch with people I used to know, whether they’re long lost friends like some of you or they’re more recent fadeouts.
10. Take big risks and find out what’s on the other side of yonder hill.

So, Class of 1989, what have you been up to? What’s your story? How much is your life now like you thought it would be then? How is it different? What’s over the horizon for you?

Thanks, Larry Pruett. I think I’m starting to understand Design Patterns from the perspective of PHP. A lot of this is still kind of cryptic to me, but if I enter in the source code manually and examine it over and over again, perhaps it will prepare me for my project to read Design Patterns(book) by the Gang of Four. I want to see if I can figure out how to use the design patterns in Ruby and JavaScript as well.

The source examples in PHP, though, are great. I’m learning a lot, even just by typing the examples in and getting them to run. If only the left shift key worked better on this keyboard. Maybe I’d better dig around and find a better one.