Thanks for all of the feedback. I was hoping for diverse opinions from others in the same field. I was hired as a new Grad at Harris Corp in Melbourne, Fl, and spent three years there before being lured 90 miles away with a big pay increase. The company that lured me away, tanked after a year, and hence I ended up on the contracting merry go round. I have a B.S., a couple of relevant certs, and a great track record. I have fallen a little behind in the Web Services area, and do not have any EJB 2.0 implementations under my belt, but have done some pretty interesting projects with XML/XSLT/XPATH being used with MQSeries and EJB1.1 (mainframe integration). I am kind of leaning toward assessing whether it would be a good place to work, while I continue my education, whether it be via a Masters program or technical certs. The main plus about a Masters degree is it could provide an opportunity to teach at some local colleges. I have always enjoyed teaching. Rufus, you should also know, I am an older dog (retired Army officer), not real long in tooth, but can relate really well to the long in tooth !