Chaos Tamer
I think the greatest challenge for people with any greater than zero amount of ambition is choosing what not to learn. For me, there are so many things I want to learn. About three lifetimes worth. Finding focus is hard. Focus means saying no to other, often great, opportunities. My goodness, that’s hard.
Fandango, a blogger I’ve been following for a bit, posted a reply to Salted Caramel’s blogging insights prompt from Monday of last week.
As I’ve been blogging since 2005, both personally and professionally, I think I have something to add. Let’s explore, shall we?
First, let’s look at Salted Caramel’s caveats.
For point 1, I actually think they should change over time. Especially for a personal blog, you want to show your evolution. Changing interests point to explorations and make for a more interesting read over time.
Point 2: I agree somewhat. Depends, ultimately, on the professional blog’s focus. If it’s for a company, sure. But if you’re a sole proprietor (say, freelancer, or real estate agent) there’s value in having a broader sampling into the person you are. My professional blogging was, mostly, focused on real estate. Real estate industry centered blogs can get…boring. I find it valuable to write about the bigger you, and the bigger community around you.
So, more than just “housing starts are up, prices are, too…”. In these cases, the client is hiring you. Why should they be interested in you?
Anyway, that’s my fast two-cents. What do you think?
I enjoy looking at desk setups. This one, though, really stands out to me. Now, I’ve been wanting an adjustable standing desk for a number of years, which is a key part of this layout. But the wood desktop and matching bookshelves? *chef’s kiss* I think this desk may be the same one. MAY be….I guess.
And then there are the three monitors. THREE! My son has three and the notion is growing on me.
I plan to upgrade my computer early next year. I may need to think about my office furniture, too.
So, I’ve not been great at perfectly sequential days (my current project has expanded out a bit), but I’m still at it.
Today’s project, “Scroll Animation“, is another simple project where we take some boxes of content and fly them in from the side. To add a bit more complexity, we have some coming from the left, and some from the right.
Another fun one. Check out my other work on this course here. Also, check out my developer site.
So, I took the past couple of days off. I was exhausted after work Thursday, then had long work days Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. So, I did two today! Fortunately, they weren’t too complicated. That brings me to day 5.
Today’s first project is titled “Hidden Search Widget“. A very simple project, where we make a search box that expands or contacts (no search functionality yet).
My second project today is “Blurry Loading“, where an image loads blurry, and comes into focus while a countdown timer counts.
Fun projects which are helping refine my HTML, CSS and JavaScript knowledge. I am working towards bettering my coding skills. Slowly but surely growing. Check out my developer site for more details.
Completed day 3 of the 50Projects in 50Days course, “rotating navigation”. This one rotates the whole page if you click on the hamburger icon in the upper left. Hard to imagine a use case, but it’s really fun.
I’ve been posting these to my recently re-done Github site. Again, I’ve done three of these:
With Expanding Cards, when you click on individual cards, they expand out, and the other ones shrink. For Process Steps, it’s like a progress indicator. Each time you press the “next” button, the line advances one over. And for Rotating Navigation, when you click on the hamburger icon, the web page rotates, showing the navigation buttons. For me, this is fun stuff. Which is good since it’s now 9:30 at night and I still haven’t eaten dinner yet.
Anyway, it feels good to refresh my knowledge and build out these skills. I feel it’s a critical part of my march into a tech career. Plus, the internet and web development are the future of tech. I intend to do one project per day every day, but we’ll see. I have a few things coming up that may cause a day or two to be lost. But I should have not problem keeping this moving forward.
Wish me luck!
So, I finished a associates in web application development back in June. My skills are ok, but pretty basic. I realize I want to code better. As I’m working on being more proactive, I opted to sign up for some Udemy courses. Right now, I’m working on 50 Projects in 50 Days. This one focuses on expanding my HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The first two projects were basic, but I needed that. Rattling through the rust. Plus, my typing has gotten…lame. I used to be highly accurate. Coding, though, is petty and will fail by missing one character, a space, a semicolon. Sometimes, the biggest challenge is simply finding the error.
So, I’ve completed two so far:
With this, I updated my hand-coded site on Github’s free service (check it out here). I’m posting these projects here, as well as in my github repository for these projects.
Part of me wants to significantly up my coding game. Perhaps event to the point of being able to take part in a hackathon. However, I am trying to juggle several things and we’ll see how far down this rabbit hole I venture.
One thing that I need to do better: value my contributions. It’s so easy to fall into the trap of “my work does nothing”. This mindset sucks life away. Contributes to depressing destructiveness.
Remember: you have value. Your work matters. Your life matters.
I just finished my final in Enterprise Architecture. By successfully completing this class, I’ve completed the requirements for some additional certificates:
I also have applied for the following certificates:
I’m done being a student for the near term, but I think I’ve accomplished a lot during these past 2.5 years. I’m proud of all I’ve done and look forward to finding ways to implement all I’ve learned.
Another goal is to land a full-time role with a company that will pay for me to continue my studies. There’s so much more to learn! I plan to start a new role sometime around the end of this year, and then be able to start classes with that company in 2023.
A blogger I highly admire, Bernie Michalik, posted this article looking at the whole Dark Brandon meme that’s running through the internet right now: On The Good and Bad Aspects of Dark Brandon (a quick aside for those unaware of the meme “Let’s Go Brandon”, it’s basically an anti-Biden euphemism. If you wish to explore it further, here’s the Wikipedia article.)
I understand that it feels good, at one level, to meet political invective head-on. However, I find it counterproductive. Bernie pulls an apt quote:
“Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.”
George Bernard Shaw
So, my thoughts? As Luke Skywalker put it, “This isn’t going to go the way you think”.
It’s best to keep our end goals in mind. Which, hopefully, isn’t just to score pyrrhic points in the eternal game of poltical one-upmanship.