There’s no doubt that I feel quite a bit of buyer’s remorse. It goes up and down - on some days I’m flush with pride and confidence in my move to product management and other days I feel foolish, jealous, angry, and very insecure.

In general, I have to admit, I’m feeling insecure about a lot of things. I don’t know if it is a natural biological time (i.e. just turned 30) or if I’ve been socially conditioned to be reflective and introspective - or finally, if there are simply too many unsettled changes going on in my life.

Somehow, I happened on the blog of Michael “Mish” Shedlock - everything must be taken with a grain of salt, of course, but I think a lot of his analysis is spot on. I’ve also started following some articles on http://seekingalpha.com/ as I try to make sense of the current investment climate.

Being in the middle-class, capital preservation is very important in volatile times - otherwise there will be nothing to invest when the market rebounds.

This is for the Hong Kong press and analysts:

Nick Kirsch has over 9 years experience designing and building distributed systems. Nick joined Isilon in 2002 as an engineer and participated in the development of version 1.0 of the Isilon OneFS operating system. Nick spent 2003-2006 designing the infrastructure and building a team dedicated to system configuration and management as a Development Lead and Engineering Manager. In 2007, Nick built a team of 15 engineers focused on Isilon’s SyncIQ disaster recovery product before leading the Software Engineering organization as the Director of Software. In April of 2008, Nick moved to Isilon’s Product Management group to focus on maintaining and extending Isilon’s technology and product lead in clustered storage. Before Isilon, Nick spent 3 years at InsynQ, Inc. as Director of Development. Nick holds Bachelor of Science degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics from the University of Puget Sound and a Master’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Washington.

My dad complained for years that everything was made in China. Sadly, it is becoming a reality.

Click on the picture to read the entire article.

Dear Mr. Kirsch:

Thank you for writing me about the current downturn in the housing market and the federal government’s role in responding. I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue.

As you know, growing losses in subprime mortgage markets have recently had a negative effect on the United States economy. Thousands of people are on the brink of losing their homes to foreclosure, and as a result many financial institutions have been faced with bankruptcy as consumer confidence in mortgage-backed securities has decreased. I share many of your concerns regarding the appropriate manner for Congress and the Administration to respond to this situation.

I am very concerned with the way Congress is rushing to fix the housing mess without taking the time to understand what the root causes are and the potential ramifications of policy on the future.

My faith in politics hinges on our leaders’ ability to look past their own re-election and towards the decisions which will have the most benefit to their constituents and the American people - not in the short-term, but in the long-term.