Thanks for responding, this is a good comment and I have considered some of what you suggest.

I do work in a very large organization, and there is a huge amount of technology in use here. The big problem is that technology is a cost center. They will never (without major changes to how the business works) do anything technologically innovative due to this. That is part of my problem with it.

I am looking at several startup jobs in the area that use more interesting technologies. I'm hoping that my incomplete side projects are enough proof that I don't only know/care about Java.

I use a ton of open source stuff (emacs, rails, countless libs) I just have problems putting myself out there when it comes to contribution.