Good post; very interesting to read these!
I'm a mutual fund analyst by day, returned to programming a couple of months ago after a long time away to bang out an idea in Pylons. I've missed it! In hopes of getting out of my daily grind to put more time into it, I'm selling custom acrylic displays and cases, focusing on custom iPad display trees, because it's working! Will exit securities analysis next year- so unfulfilling and statistically pointless. Index your money.