Really great writeup, thanks for sharing. I, for one, certainly don't mind people submitting their own stuff.

This is a great topic for people who are still working for someone else. One issue I've had is that I'm basically incapable of treating anything like a "day job". I want work really hard and pour passion into anything I do. When I have a day job I tend to give my best energy to it, draining me from my own projects.

That's a terrific blog entry. I've argued with my parents before about summer jobs in College. I think I'd have performed a lot better during the fall semester if I'd been able to take the summer vacations as free time, rather than spending 8 hours a day working in an office.

I'd recommend internships, if you can get one, even if it means spending a lot of time working. But grunt jobs suck and part of me really regrets the amount of time and energy it wasted during my college summers.