For years this has been a question that has always intrigued me. Yet my answer to this question has changed so many times I have been amazed.

This question has given me a chance to have a look at my life from an outsiders perspective. Every time I have asked my self this question my answer has been different, and these differences have shown me how I grow as a person, how my life progresses even though I always thought I had it all figured out.

When I first asked my self this question I was around 14 or so, at this point in my life I thought in five years I would be just starting college to go into game design. Each year I would ask my self the same question and the answer would be different. The next few years my life was dedicated to providing for the girl who I thought was going to be my significant other forever (which was my answer to the question as well), of course that was not the case.

Now it being over 5 years from the first time I asked my self that question I am overjoyed to see I was wrong at 14! It also shows me that planing that far out on a timeline is not likely to be correct.

I believe that the best way to plan ahead is goals. Everyone of the goals (other than game design) that I set at 14 I have reached 5 years later.

So as of today I am setting my goals for five years from now.

• Make one million dollars.
• Own a self sustaining company.
• Travel to at least two countries off this continent.
• Meet a young lady I wouldn’t mind spending my life with.
• Own a BMW fully paid off.

Not a bad list. So my question to all of you:

Where do you see yourself in 5 years OR What are your goals for the next 5 years?

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
require ‘net/http’
require ‘rexml/document’

# Twitter account information
TW_USER = ”
TW_PASS = ”
# Last.fm username
LF_USER = “”

# DO NOT CHANGE BELOW THIS
TW_URL = ‘http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml’
LAST_FM_URL = “http://ws.audioscrobbler.com/1.0/user/#{LF_USER}/recentlovedtracks.xml”

# temp variables
last_url = “”
first_run = 1

def postToTwitter(message)
begin
url = URI.parse(TW_URL)
req = Net::HTTP::Post.new(url.path)
req.basic_auth TW_USER, TW_PASS
req.set_form_data({‘status’ => message})
begin
res = Net::HTTP.new(url.host, url.port).start {|http| http.request(req) }
case res
when Net::HTTPSuccess, Net::HTTPRedirection
if res.body.empty?
puts “Twitter is not responding properly”

else
puts ‘Twitter update succeeded’

end
else
puts ‘Twitter update failed for an unknown reason’
# res.error!

end
rescue
puts $!
#puts “Twitter update failed - check username/password”

end
rescue SocketError
puts “Twitter is currently unavailable”

end
end

while true

# get the XML data as a string
xml_data = Net::HTTP.get_response(URI.parse(LAST_FM_URL)).body
doc = REXML::Document.new(xml_data)

if ( doc.elements[“recentlovedtracks/track[1]/url”].text != last_url)
puts “No match”

last_url = doc.elements[“recentlovedtracks/track[1]/url”].text
last_artist = doc.elements[“recentlovedtracks/track[1]/artist”].text
last_name = doc.elements[“recentlovedtracks/track[1]/name”].text

message = “Last.FM: #{last_name} - #{last_artist}\n\n#{last_url}”

# Dont send a twitter message on first run of script
if (first_run != 1)
postToTwitter(message)
end
first_run = 0
else
puts “No change”
end
sleep 200
end

It turns out I was right. I never use this thing. But I think I’m going to make it my main website soon. Simple and easy.

So I am now posting through a Tumblr Bot to my miniblog…. This is going to be interesting. Now anything I send to it will be posted to my blog…. strange concept. We will see how bad this will end up.