If only time served makes you a veteran, I guess I'm one too, but a lot of it was mediocre time.

I still like hacking on things, but only on hobby projects. When it has something to do with work, I agree. Clojure reminds me of why I liked coding in the first place and I like the way LISP-type languages make me think differently about what I'm doing.

But "in the real world," yeah, I don't want those things. I want something I can build and maintain and be done.