You want a toe? I can get you a toe, believe me...

That line always reminds me of all the stuff I can't do. If you really needed a toe by 3 this afternoon (with nail polish on it) I am not the man to ask.

However as I was cleaning out my study and other assorted bookshelves I did realize there are some things I can do. There are also some things I started learning to do and then quit.

As a sample exercise let's take a look at the O'Reilly books I own.

Classic Shell Scripting
Sendmail
Learning PHP and MySQL
Ruby on Rails: Up and Running
Learning Perl
Practical C Programming
lex & yacc

I can actually write some decent shell scripts, ANSI C code, PHP code, and the infrequent SQL statement. Unfortunately I haven't installed MySQL in quite a while and I can't tell you the last time I actually sat down and wrote anything in a *nix system. If you asked me to write a parser or compiler I imagine you would only get some guffaws from me.

On the other hand I still haven't learned Perl (and probably never will!) or Ruby on Rails. I really want to learn Ruby on Rails. I just haven't forced myself to sit down and pick it up. I don't imagine it'll be that difficult.

So, the projects that I'd like to work on:

1) Getting a *nix box setup and running. I think I already have the hardware necessary.
2) Creating a website for my dad and writing an app so he can update the content of said page.
3) Write and very small and simple computer language. You never know when you'll need to bust out a parser, amirite?

We'll see if that stuff ever gets done. If I were a betting man I wouldn't put any money down.