Mmmmm. Yeah. Ease into the week.
I did a very white guy dance at my desk to this today at my computer. Posting here so you can dance like the ethnicity/race of your choice or inheritance.
Vowing to listen to more soul this summer. Yeah.
A couple of weeks ago I had a drink with a longtime friend Andre. We have the periodic catch up moments, and really the’re awesome.
Andre moved from the desert where I live to San Francisco to pursue more school, graduated, and worked in project management for a few startups. Stories are rad, especially when he starts talking about a new venture in sustainable vacationing in Costa Rica that involves Treehouses. Yes. Big awesome adult treehouses. Ditches the fast paced tumult of fast creativity and venture capitalism. Inspiring. He asks me what I’ve been up to every time in one of the most fascinatingly genuine tones I’ve ever heard- the guy is the genuine article.
I told him about getting back into aspects of web development after a few realizations. How awesome it is to walk in a direction that you constantly feel compelled to run instead. How important being a constant student is, and the challenges and euphoria of staying ahead in an industry that changes overnight, and is in genuine evolution.
At the end of it, he told me that he has a lot of connections in the tech industry and that he can put me through to people when the time comes. I thought “awesome” and “thanks” etc, but what I said was something I hadn’t thought about. I told him that that’s cool, but I want to work at becoming a person that can offer something to the people he knows, and to be one of the people he knows in that same way. The creative connection and ideas are the most important. The code and the skills are just a method to that end. Just talking to him that one time and bringing him up to speed helped me understand more of what I’m doing to me. I might have a more romanticized idea of some things, but it’s the idea that drives people more than the reality at the end of the tunnel.
It’s a thought that has stuck with me. Focusing on what I can bring to an idea or a project as an extension of my ability. Who cares what you’re going after, as long as it’s fulfilling.
Andre has been one of the most relentlessly optimistic people I’ve ever met. I never knew how he did it, but then I realized he’s never stopped trying to catch what makes him happy.
Wonderful short essay on pursuing coding, but relevant to any endeavor.
It takes 10 years to develop an expertise, based on some science done researching that. I find myself winding up so incredibly quickly sometimes, that I forget these things. That the real timeline for my progress is way different than the one in my head. Nice reminder to slow down.
Blog following the endeavors of an HTML/CSS front end dev diving into learning Ruby on Rails, and setting a goal for writing his first application in 16 weeks. Brilliant!
This same idea has been knocking around in my noggin for just a minute…
Pause Photoshop work. Throw this on and work on JavaScript. Wonderful.
It’s really just a quick and dirty trick. By the end you’ll have something that looks a little bit like a line drawing, and would be a good starting point for further editing.
Here’s an imgur album of the full-sized screenshots, since they’re super small here.
Oh and I used this picture from flickr.
This is actually neat.
We’re just about to hit 40 full-time employees at Treehouse and I’ve noticed that the urge to go “vanilla” is pretty strong.
As companies grow they seem to have a natural tendency to move from creative, fun and adventurous cultures to safe, systemitized “vanilla” cultures. They’re safe and…
The CEO of Treehouse, a membership site dedicated to teaching web design and development, has some sharp ideas about business leadership and culture- a lot of what I’ve come to desire in jobs that I’ve worked. Definitely an awesome attitude that is the best for a forward thinking tech and creativity team.
I’m not really excited about this framework. Sure it’s responsive, but it just feels…. repetitious.
And those buttons….. they’re not supposed to be for diagrams Mr. White House web developer.
Meh.
I’m already reminded how good it is to get back to using a Mac. I don’t have much to say other than that.
I say this with 5 years of managing at 4-5 PC network at my primary work. It’s been a less than satisfying experience to say the least. There’s some statistic (wish I could find the source) saying the average PC user spends an average of 50 hours a year fixing/troubleshooting a Windows PC. I’d say that’s a safe estimate, multiplied by at least 4 for me.
Average Mac user spends 5 hours per year.
