Working my butt off!

Wow, so last week and so far this week I have been working my butt off. Unfortunately I haven't been coding as much as I'd like. It seems that everyone is in high gear trying to get things finished before the snow comes so last week I worked 60 hours and it already is looking like another 60 hour week again. I am still studying in the morning before work, reading while at work and continuing studying in the evening. I'm just about all finished up with the JavaScript exercises and I have been reading Learning Web App Development while at work and finished up about 100 pages of that so far. I hope soon things will slow down at work so I have more time to get down to programming. I will try to update more frequently but lately it has been hard to really do much more of anything besides being at work non stop. Im still getting progress made but it just seems a lot slower than what I find as being ideal.

Trucks, mud and JavaScript

Wow I know it's been awhile since my last update. I have been slammed at work, it seems everyone decided at once that winters coming and now every crew is trying to beat the snow and get as much concrete poured as possible. Needless to say everyday the last 2 weeks I have started really early in the morning and worked until it was about dark. I was able to finish reading the JavaScript book and now I'm just working through the exercises.

On Thursday and Friday it rained and work was a major mess and even worse on Saturday! A few guys got stuck and had to be pulled out of the mud. I almost got stuck a few times. Heavy trucks that way over 70,000lbs loaded don't mix well with mud and almost every job is on dirt so it just made things really interesting and dirty.

Overall once winter sets in business will drop off and it will be much easier to get more study time in. I'm happy because I love to code and I know that I have great opportunities ahead if I just stay on track.

My screen went black

So the other day my computer screen went black. The cursor was there but every time I would re boot, the computer would go right to the black screen again. I was able to finally figure it out last night by doing some googling of course and found out it was an update. Kinda weird that it does that but anyways I just safe booted it up entered my username and password on the black screen with nothing typed hoping something would register. Well it did and then it started downloading the update. Glad to have my computer back so I can finish up the code exercises for JavaScript.

The last few days I have been back driving the truck. My hand is finally feeling better and the Dr. released me. I am not thrilled about driving but it has been working well because I have been able to read a lot. We have had some time where all of us are just sitting in our trucks for up to an hour or two so I have really been getting a good amount of reading done while at work. I only have 50 more pages to go in the JavaScript book so I am sure I will finish up with that today and then just finishing up the corresponding code exercises.

I really feel I have gained a way better understanding of code and it does seem that the more I do it the more things start to click and I have those brief moments where things will make sense and then there is something new that needs to be figured out. It always keeps your mind in the game. Thats what I love about coding is it keeps your mind thinking. Pouring concrete is easy. Once you know how to drive a truck and learn a little about concrete you know the job. It is so repetitive and boring the only challenge is showing up to an unknown job site and figuring out how to back the truck into some awkward spot the crew wants or how to dodge in and out of road construction cones. Learning to code is not only challenging but it is fun and rewarding. There is always something new to learn which is a perfect fit for someone like me who is naturally inquisitive.

Moving right along

So far I am almost done with A Smarter Way to Learn JavaScript. It is going well and I have about 100 more pages to go. I really am glad I chose this way to start with my journey into JavaScript. I know many people learn frameworks like jQuery first before really knowing JavaScript so I think this will really help down the road.

I know when I first set off to learn how to code I thought that I would just become a ruby on rails developer and that would be that. After really digging in and seeing what learning to code and being a web developer was all about, I realized that it isn't about being a this or that type of web developer but just being a web developer in general. You need to see what technologies are working for what applications. You need to plan your app before you even choose a framework to use. Why start a project and get half way into it just to realize that a completely different framework should be what is used? I find it for this reason that I need to really know the basics like HTML and CSS which I feel fairly comfortable with and of course JavaScript. I also need to be adaptable though so I can build off the foundation I have and get an understanding of how different frameworks work. I don't want to get too ahead of myself but I do think knowing express, node and angular would be great tools in the bag. Understanding mongoDB fairly well would be highly beneficial. Then of course you have ruby on rails as well. I already know that GO is an emerging language to watch out for so staying current with what tech is coming out and knowing how it works and differs from what is being used currently, will keep you from eventually putting yourself out of a job. I know some stuff will come and go quick as everything's constantly being improved upon but it's good just to stay current.

Great meetup

Last nights JavaScript meetup was great. The presentation was building a node app. and was really cool to see the process. With having my little experience working on rails, I was able to see and understand what was going on for a change and even more cool than that was, that it was in JavaScript and not Ruby.

I am really glad I started the Smarter Way to Learn book last week because it has already helped a ton and I know the information is really sticking. So far I'm about half way through the book and still learning a ton! I know I may not finish it by my Friday goal but after really getting into the book, I want to get as many miles as I can out of it. Either way I should be done this weekend and then it will be on to Learning Web App Development.

A Smarter Way to Learn

Over this weekend I made it about a quarter of the way through the book A Smarter Way to Learn JavaScript by Mark Myers. All I can really say is that the book is awesome. I feel like the information is really sticking. The book has 89 chapters and I have read through 22 chapters so far. A chapter is about 2-3 pages long and then you go online to the corresponding website where you complete 20 exercises for that chapter. Some exercises are a bit repetitive but thats not bad because I have remembered everything that the book has covered so far. My goal is to finish that book by this Friday.

I put in about 10 hours both on Saturday and Sunday and continued my 4-5 hours all week. This week I am going to try for 5 hours of study time everyday and at least 10 hours each day on the weekend. I know that if I keep pushing myself and keep learning that all the hard work will pay off. 

I'm still looking forward to the JavaScript meetup this Wednesday evening. There are always good presentations and I personally learn a lot every time I go.

JavaScript

Lately I have been giving more thought to getting a good knowledge base on JavaScript. I know regardless of what job I may have in the future, I'm still going to need to know it and I would like to be proficient with it. I do think being able to handle front end development is important and will most likely be a valuable asset for any development team. I also would really enjoy getting a tech job so I will be closer to where I need to be career wise and still keep studying. I am so sick of driving a truck and that gives me so much motivation it's kinda funny.

With that being said as of 4am this morning I have started reading A Smarter Way to Learn JavaScript by Mark Myers. It is a great book with a bunch of exercises to do. I hope to make a huge dent in it this weekend. I will also be reading Head First JavaScript Programming by Eric Freeman and Elisabeth Robson. This is also a great JavaScript book that I think should get me pretty far. After I have these two books finished I will move onto Learning Web App Development by Semmy Purewal. I am excited for this book because I will get my feet wet with some node. I think so far that this will be a good start. I'd really like to get more into node so I can work with rails or node depending on what kind of project I'm going to be working on. 

So far I still really love the Ruby language but JavaScript isn't too bad. I do think knowing some Ruby before js has helped a lot in understanding programming. I remember at first looking at Ruby code and having no idea what was going on or what I was really doing. Now things are starting to come easier. 

On Tuesday this week I went down to Boulder for the Ruby meetup at Pivitol labs. The meetup was great and there were two really informative presentations. I always love going to the Boulder meetup just because there are so many great people there! Next week on the 25th I will be going to the Colorado Springs JavaScript meetup. It will be nice to go to a meetup here in town for a change. As much as I do love the boulder meetup I dread the drive. Two hours of driving from the Springs to Boulder through rush hour traffic followed by the drive home through road construction after working all day and getting up at 4am to study just makes for a horribly long day. Anyways I would say it was a great week and I accomplished a lot so I'm pretty happy with my current progress.

Boulder Ruby Meetup

On Sunday I finished HTML and CSS: Design and Build Websites by Jon Duckett which was a great book! I feel that it really helped everything to sink in and now I am becoming more comfortable with reading and writing HTML and CSS. I can look at a page and understand what's going on and why. I know that's pretty basic stuff but I felt from the very start when I set out to do this, that I would start from the basics and work my way up. I have a good start on ruby so far and rails I have gotten a great taste of as well. I think my next steps will be to finish One Month Rails and figure out how to get past the current road block with that project. After I complete that I would really like to dive into the Rails tutorial.

Tonight I'm going to the Boulder Ruby meetup right after work. It's about a 2 hour drive but well worth it. I really do feel that I learn a lot from everyone at the meetups and I'm looking forward to still going to as many as possible. Colorado Springs has a few good meetups, I attended one of the JavaScript groups and learned a lot about node. I also would like to get a better grasp of JavaScript so this morning I'm going through the JavaScript chapter in Learning Web Design by Jennifer Robbins. It's a really short chapter but holds some good information as a brief js rundown. I have a few JavaScript books on the shelf that are next on the agenda after my One Month Rails project and Rails tutorial. Maybe I will throw it in there just to mix things up a bit.

I'm still studying at least 4 hours a day which I think for now I will stick with. I think that's a good amount of time balancing between work and family. 

HTML and CSS Review

This week I have been brushing up by reading HTML and CSS: Design and build websites by Jon Duckett. I have about 150 more pages to go and feel that my HTML and CSS skills have come along way and I have retained a lot of the information I have previously studied.

I am still studying for 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours at night.

Labor Day!

So this last month has been quite hectic with my hand injury. The whole process so far just trying to get this whole thing taken care of has been such a long drawn out process. Anyways I really don't want to blog about that tonight.

I just got back from our family Labor Day trip back to Lake Tahoe. Tanya , Gemma and I went back for Gemma's 4th birthday which was on Labor Day. We spent Sunday Celebrating her birthday at Donner Lake with her cousin on the beach and had a great time and got lots of great presents. On Saturday we took a trip up to Lake Tahoe where we ate at the Fire Sign Cafe in Tahoe City and then went to the beach where we had some more fun in the water. I am now back early due to work while Tanya and Gemma stay until Saturday morning when they fly back.

I'm currently working on One Month Rails again picking up where I left off. I have been bad about posting and will start updating more. My current goal is to study 2 hours every morning before work. So far I am not doing too bad. I am a bit slower with needing to rest my hand here and there do to pain in my joints but I just do some reading up on css to fill in the time.

It's been long enough!

Well it has been a long time since my last update and it has been a crazy couple of months. I started a new job with Trans Colorado Concrete and in my first week I only worked 3 and a half days and got 40 hours in, so needless to say for the last 2 and a half months I have been working 60 hour weeks and we didn't even have internet for over a month. I know it seems like I gave up on this crazy dream but I have not at all. As they say life is what happens when you are planning life. Now I am just trying to figure a way to keep studying while we are so busy at work. I know in a few months things will slow down drastically so I will have plenty of time to study and get to the meetup groups.

The dream is still very much alive and my goal has not changed. I have been able to do some reading here and there while at work when there has been down time but usually I can only read for about 45 minutes which doesn't get me that far and dedicating a 3 hour block of time when you worked 12 hours and still need to cook dinner and be up at 4am is really hard to do unless you don't plan on spending any time with your family.

So on friday July 25 I injured myself while at work. I was washing my truck after pouring concrete at a job and had 2 chutes on with concrete still on. When I unlocked my chute it swung to the side so I put my hands up to stop it and crushed the backside of my hand in the process. So now I have been stuck on light duty working 8 hours a day and doing physical therapy twice a week. Apparently I severely bruised the bones in my hand as well as the nerves and tendons. I have lost a lot of my grip strength, have constant pain and tingling and have realized that I can't keep doing this job. I love web development and creating things and just knowing everyday I go to work at my current job I could end up hurt or even dead gives me that much more motivation to keep the dream and all my goals alive.

With that being said, I have been trying to take full advantage of only working 8 hour days to get back to studying more. I will try to be better about updating this blog as I continue my journey with web development. I hope that soon my hand will be back to how it was and I won't have any lasting damage. As of now the doctor doesn't want me driving for at least two more weeks.

I really want to thank my wonderful wife Tanya who is always there to support me and doesn't let me give up no matter what. When things get tough or when I get discouraged she is always there to kick my ass in gear and give me the much needed motivation to keep charging ahead. I also want to thank my daughter Gemma for keeping my spirits up, she is so cute and always can make me smile no matter how bad of a day I had. Lastly I want to thank all of you who are reading my blog and following my journey. It's always encouraging to see so many other people pursuing their dreams and goals and showing that it is possible as long as you stick with it and never give up.

Crazy Week

So this entire last week I have been working my butt off. I found a job driving a ready mix truck. Pretty good job just long hours so studying has been hard. Once I get into the swing of things I should be able to schedule in my meetups. The company is really flexible and I at least have really great benefits like this 3 day weekend. I am getting a paid holiday after only a week of being there.

This weekend we Tanya, Gemma and I are going to have fun at frontier days and luckily it's right down the street from where we live.

One Month Rails Continues...

Ok, so after reviewing Ruby for the last few days and getting a better grasp of some of whats going on, I'm feeling much better and more confident. I still am unsure why my last app I started with One Month Rails was never able to get pushed to heroku. I have started the whole process over from scratch and was able to get my new One Month Rails app live on heroku.

I should have the app finished by the end of the day today if everything goes smoothly. You can check out my app at enigmatic-earth-3276.herokuapp.com

SO far everything has gone smoothly so up until this point I know I am not repeating the same mistake I had the first time around.

Total study time logged: 304 hours

More Ruby

For the last few days I have been going back and trying to understand Ruby a little better. I found it pretty cool I was able to get the structure of an app hammered out pretty quick and live as well. I just really want to understand and really look at all the code and try and understand whats going on. This is really fun and I figure I really should know especially because I moved through the first half of One Month Rails so fast.

I was really happy to get the domain I purchased on godaddy to work for my app. It didn't seem that hard at all to get all the forwarding set up. I was unsure at first if what I did actually worked but it just took about 14 hours to go through. It was overall an easy process on both godaddy and heroku to get everything all set up.

Total study time 280 Hours

Totally happy!

Wow, so I guess I have posted a lot in the last week. Yesterday I started working on my own personal app at around 1pm, (not the one month rails app) to see if I could get it pushed to heroku. At 8pm I did it. Yea I was cooking dinner, watching tv, and coding at the same time and somehow pulled that off. All I can say is that I am totally happy that I was able to git-er-done. Now I am going back through the one month rails app, I am not sure if I will launch that one yet or not but I am starting over with that one from scratch.

I probably will kick butt today and leave tomorrow for Mothers Day. I think I deserve a days break and Tanya definitely deserves a special day. Thanks for being so awesome babe!

You can check out my app but please keep in mind that this is by far not close to being done. Just a work in progress and something to push live. www.jon-rogers.com

Starting from scratch

I still haven't been able to solve the problem with not being able to push my app to heroku. I have had a lot of help from everyone and I really appreciate all your time and effort with this. Due to not having any idea where the issue is, I have decided to start over from scratch to see if it was something I had done while building the app. Maybe this time around everything will go smoothly. Fingers crossed, I guess we will find out soon enough.

In other news, the DTC Ruby meetup went well and had some great presentations. Just a great group of people.

Halfway through One Month Rails

I have made it about halfway through One Month Rails and everything has seemed to be going great until I tried to push my app to heroku. Gosh what a headache! The funny thing is I already know that it is a simple fix. Oh well, looking at the glass half full, I will at least know what to do next time this issue pops up.

This is the error that keeps occuring:

fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Please make sure you have the correct access rights and the repository exists.

Besides the frustration of not being able to push my app to heroku, I'm pretty happy with what I have learned so far.

Total study time: 245 hours

Starting One Month Rails

So this last month I have been learning all about HTML5, CSS3 a little JavaScript and a lot of Ruby. I have started to get used to working with the command line in terminal and I have also been learning a lot about git. I think I have enough of an understanding of ruby and the flow and the different things ruby can do, that I am now ready to start really getting into rails. I have met a lot of people who started with rails and soon realized that they needed to learn ruby in order to understand what was going on. I wanted to learn a good amount of ruby in order to understand rails.

I know that I have a long way to go but I have at least an idea of how things work. I am excited to know that I am ready to start applying what I have learned so far to actually building something besides HTML and CSS pages. I'm going to start with One Month Rails and then after that I will start reading Learning Webb App Development by Semmy Purewal as a primer before reading Ruby on Rails Tutorial by Michael Hartl.

I have realized that when you apply what you are learning to actually creating something, it sinks in a lot better. What I don't really like about the online schools where you code in the browser is that you never work towards something real. They have great information and teach you a lot but what I realized just in the HTML and CSS section on codecademy was that I had learned a lot more through reading Learning Wed Design by Jennifer Robbins and actually understood what I had learned and had already applied it to creating my own pages for my own personal website.

All in all I am really happy with my progress in April. I got off to a good start and now I am ready to keep on building off what I have learned so far. I never would have even imagined that I would be doing anything like this just 2 months ago. I was planning on driving a ready mix truck this summer but have realized I found something I love doing. I get to create cool stuff! Now I just need to keep learning and find a job that will allow me to grow and learn on the job.

A slow start for May

May has so far started off pretty slow. The flu has hit all of us here at home and we have not been able to do much besides try and get better. I have only been able to get a few hours of study time in during the morning while everyone is still asleep.

Once we beat this nasty bug going around, I should be back on track with my regular amount of study time of 8-10 hours per day.

Looking back at April

I embarked on this journey April 1, 2014 and it has been an entire month so far. I think that I have really accomplished a lot. I have learned not only a lot about computers, the web, and programming, but I have also learned a lot about myself and what I want out of life.

When I first decided to go after this dream and start writing my goals down, I had no idea what I was really getting myself into. All I knew was that I had to, I was driven to do something more. I am now feeling great about what lies ahead. So far, I have met a lot of great people within the community that are always ready to help and give great advice. I have discovered how I learn things and how the best way to learn is through creation. My imagination has opened up and my mind has been flooded with so many ideas.

I have always loved to learn new things and tackle exciting obstacles throughout life and I am truly happy that I found a skill that there will always be something new to learn. I am also really thankful for everyone's help and support, without it I would be lost. I want to especially thank my girlfriend Tanya for always being there for me and believing in me when many haven't and my daughter for always making me smile when I get discouraged, I love you both!

April has been a good month and I feel that I have made great progress so far. The month of May is going to be really exciting as I continue to drink from the fire hose!

Total study time: 215 hours

A slight change-up

For the last few days I have been reading some self help books to help change around our financial situation. For far to long we have watched money slip between our fingers. Tanya and I both have agreed we need to get a handle on our finances and finally "do" something about it.

After being completely frustrated with Code School, I moved on to codecademy and have found that more helpful and FREE! Not that code school was bad, just frustrating especially if you are paying $30 a month for their service. I might try lynda or treehouse to diversify a bit.

As for the other books I have read since my last post:

• Maximum Achievement by Brian Tracy
• Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
• The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko
• The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness by Dave Ramsey
• Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki

I'd say not to shabby, 5 books in 3 days. Total study time logged so far, 195 hours!

Code School == frustration

Maybe it might just be me but it seems that Code School is set up to create confusion and frustration. 

I started off with Code School and soon realized that I didn't understand a thing that was going on. I went through a few of the beginning courses and didn't understand what or why I was doing things. Nothing made sense. I would just click the hints to see the answer because I wasn't even given the tools needed to be able to try and figure out the answer. I would sit there and guess, then play around with the code. Sometimes I would get it right by accident and other times I would just look at the answer and still have no idea why the code was re-written the way they had it.

Now that I have read a lot of other materials, I feel that Code School would benefit someone after they get a working base of knowledge. There are just way to many gaps in their material. I'm not saying you can't figure things out this way but maybe to have a better understanding of the material first and use Code School to solidify and ingrain the knowledge on top of what you have already learned.

This is just my feelings towards this learning process. I know everyone is different and they may learn better the Code School way. I am still trying out Code Academy and not sure if I want to pay more for online schools until I get my base of knowledge up more. Then the online schools should be a good refresher.

155 hours

So I am at 155 hours so far. I am having a great time and learning so much.

So far I have completed Learning Web Design, Command Line Crash Course and Learn to Program. I am almost done with the Pragmatic Studio course and I have started reading Learn Ruby the Hard Way.

I am planning to go to a JavaScript meetup tomorrow night. Should be fun and interesting because they will be talking about node.

Easter was great, we all had a wonderful day. My mom cooked an amazing dinner and Rob set up an awesome Easter egg hunt for Gemma. Of course she was wired from all the candy all day but she had a great time and even had a couple tractor rides!

An awesome week

This week has been pretty good. My sister came in to town and it was really nice to see her. We are all excited for Easter and Gemma is especially looking forward to a big easter egg hunt!

So far with studying I am at 136 hours of total study time. Working through Chris Pines book and I should have that done later tonight. Still working through the Pragmatic Studio course. Things this week are starting to make more sense.

I attended the Boulder Ruby meetup and it was very informative. I was able to meet some really nice people there and learn a lot of new stuff. Just a great group of people there! I also went to the Colorado Springs hack night meetup which was nice. There were only about 6 of us there which made it nice to talk and learn some stuff on a more personal level. From what I have seen the Ruby community is great and very helpful. I have a JavaScript meetup next week I am planning on going to. They will be talking about Node and I think that would be something to look into. I really do like the meetups and I will continue to go. I would like to have something to present one of these times but I will save that for when I have something neat to share.

Happy Easter to everyone!

100 hours!

I am now at 100 hours of study time so far.

I'm still currently plugging away at The Pragmatic Studio Ruby course which is just an awesome course. Definitely worth the money! I have also been working with what I have learned so far in the Learning Web Design book by writing some HTML pages and linking everything together and then adding a CSS style sheet. Pretty cool stuff.

Learning, learning and more learning

I find it really amazing how little I knew just 2 weeks ago regarding computers and the web. At first all of this just seemed so overwhelming but I am really starting to understand the basics.
I know that there are going to be many challenges ahead. I mean seriously I have already spent some quality time trying to figure out why my codes sometimes won't work. Yesterday I found myself blankly staring at the screen going over every bit of code, over and over and over again and still not seeing what the mistake was. I finally found that I forgot to close off a simple tag. One small mistake and such a huge headache. Weirdly enough, I actually did enjoy trying to go through and find the problem and correct it. I felt after I had succeeded with that small task that I had at least accomplished something and all the frustration seemed to have its own silly reward.

On a side note, my girlfriend forced me out of the house to take a break. It was such a beautiful day we decided to use our season pass to the zoo and go for a little while. Gemma had a blast as always and even better it wore her down so I had plenty of study time while she was napping.

So far I am at a total of 85 hours and going strong.

Just a quick update

Ok so I am now at 60 hours of total study time logged so far!

I am already trying to come up with some ideas for my personal website. I was thinking that making a neat app to incorporate into my web site would be really cool. Any ideas? I know I would like to compile a list of fun things to do with your family in the Colorado Springs area. Just from our experience, it was challenging to find a good resource of things to do if you are on a budget.

Here we go!

I have now been self studying for one week. I feel like HTML and CSS are coming pretty easy and I have been having fun just doing some basic stuff.

Code school is also going well. I really like Ruby so far and especially how straight forward it is. I am really enjoying the learning process even though it seems like i'm drinking in all this knowledge from a fire hose. I have also started a Ruby web course through The Pragmatic Studio which by far has been the best investment that I have made so far. What a well done course!

I am currently finishing up the book Learning Web Design by Jennifer Nierderst Robbins which has been a pretty good read and i've started to begin familiarizing myself with how the web works, as well as how to construct HTML and CSS. I also just started reading Learn to Program by Chris Pine which is an awesome book! I am now just trying to keep getting the basic understanding down before I move on to the beast of all tutorials.

After my first week my total amount of study time has amounted to 42 hours. I feel that's not to bad for my first week and just trying to figure out where to start. Now that I have the ball rolling, it is time to start amping it up even more. My goal for now is to put in at least 8 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Getting things started!

This is going to be a long post so sorry in advance and congratulations if you make it all the way through!

So, my birthday was last Monday March 31 and I had a horrible day at work. The day was long and I came home dirty and late. I ended up missing my birthday dinner the love of my life had all planned out. I was supposed to have an early day off work but things changed.

I had spent the whole day at work thinking wow I am 28 years old now and what am I doing with my life? I am not doing the job I want to do and I feel very under appreciated for the hard work that I have done. I have worked many jobs, especially in construction where dealing with people with personality differences was the norm, but for the most part if you give respect you get it in return. This job I felt worse at and more under appreciated than any job I have ever had. This was the straw that broke the camels back. No more working hard with nothing to show for it.

I can't expect to change things around by doing the same thing that I have been doing for years. That would just be crazy!  I am sick of always being broke, living pay check to pay check in jobs that really have no growth potential or job security. I am digging in and ready to do what ever it takes to be successful.

I started off out of high school going to Community College to become a firefighter. I went through a part time fire academy, took some other classes and tried getting a wildland fire job with the forest service and BLM. I had no success year after year. Every year in January I would start the process all over again. I would start training hard by getting in shape for fire season. I would make phone calls all over the country trying to call crew supervisors, showing up to meet local Engine Captains and Crew Supervisors, any one I could talk to just to get my foot in the door.

I realized after a few summers of this that it was going to be a lot harder than I thought. No one would hire without experience and how do you get experience with out getting a job? School was not going to be enough. A few of my friends that had fire science degrees and the fire academy were unable to get jobs as well. I kinda gave up after 7 years of non success all while still taking classes at local colleges and working odd jobs from pizza delivery to boat inspections. My main job was as a security guard for the ski resort Northstar at Tahoe working the graveyard shift. It was a good job but no real opportunity for advancement.

I decided that I would go to truck school and try truck driving as a career. I went to Desert Truck School and got my Class A drivers license. I started working for a local company along with my girlfriend and lasted about 3 weeks before they decided to "let us both go" from the training program. So I moved on to work for Pride Transport out of Salt Lake City, UT driving over the road lower 48 states. In only 1 month I saw over 30 states and ate at Denny's in most of those states. I saw a lot of bad accidents and was never home for more than 1 or 2 days at a time. This was so hard on family, my daughter and girlfriend both missed me and I realized the money which wasn't much wouldn't be worth never seeing my family or watching my daughter grow up.

I was lucky to find a local job in my home town of Truckee, CA working for TNT Materials driving a concrete mixer. I loved this job and all the guys I got to work with. We got to work on some really high end projects building houses for many celebrities and at least one billionaire that I am not able to mention due to confidentiality agreements. I was able to do helicopter pours at ski resorts and go places must people would never be allowed to go but this job is dangerous. A few guys have rolled their trucks and some on steep ski hills. My old neighbor/ co worker almost died in a bad wreck this way but it comes with the territory with jobs like this. It was fun, good money but due to being in the mountains was only a summer job.

This last January we moved to Colorado Springs for a new start and to be closer to family. I have been trying to think of where I want to take my future career after so many years of struggling. As my dad has told me before, "Even the blind squirrel runs into an acorn eventually." I now have a new found sense of urgency to find a job doing what I want to do and working for someone who appreciates the hard work and time I put in for them.

I have decided on Web Development. I know that this might come to some as a bit of a shock, I have no experience with computers at all besides the use of Microsoft Word and searching the web. I have already started learning with the use of Code School and their Ruby program. I have a few good books that I am starting out with such as Learning Web Design by Jennifer Robbins, Learn to Program by Chris Pine and Beginning Ruby: From Novice to Professional by Peter Cooper. For now this should be a good start and has already kept me busy thus far.

I will try and update a few times a week on my progress with this new and exciting journey that I have decided to embark on.

My goal is to have a job as a junior web developer before January 1, 2015.