Day 3

Don’t think I need to announce what day it is anymore, lol. I think I’ve got my morning routine down now. Alarms go off at 6 am and I’m out of bed by 6:15 am typically. Coffee is done brewing by the time I get downstairs. Feed the dog and make my coffee (ghee is my only additive right now but I’ll get back to Bulletproof Coffee at some point using Brain Octane™ Oil). I then do my Daily Limber from Gymnastic Bodies. Follow that up with some journaling which right now is a version of the The Five Minute Journal that I have copied into Evernote and added to. I created a template note then duplicate that note every morning and change the title to the date. You can find the template here if you want to use it. After that I meditate for about 5 minutes. Depending on the day I may walk the dog now or later (I did today because thunderstorms were approaching). This gets me to about 7 am when I start coding until the kids wake up. I think I’ll keep this format for now.

Only news from my morning coding session is that it got cut short because of this:
tornado_warning
It seems like I’m linking a lot of tools lol. If you’re wondering how I got that notification from my phone on my computer it’s an app called Pushbullet.

Got back to it and moving closer and closer to a Tic Tac Toe game built in Ruby. Something that I definitely made sure to add to my notes for reference later is:
In Ruby only false and nil are falsey. Everything else is truthy (yes, even 0 is truthy).
This is a great one liner to remember that there are only two things that return false in Ruby.

I also learned a lot more about Test Driven Development (which I know is BIG in real life).

WHAT IS TEST DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT?
Test Driven Development, is a method for approaching a problem not through the implementation of the solution, but through the expectations of a working solution. Instead of trying to write the code that solves the problem, you first define what the working code will do when it works, and then you write the implementation to make it work.

Can’t wait to finish off this section and have my working Tic Tac Toe project to share.

This made me chuckle only because I guess most people do this program part time so hitting the top of this “velocity” meter is a goal.
velocity_meter_full_at_53

Time spent today: 3:22
Time spent total: 9:41
Lessons completed today: 28

Day 2

Another day, more code. However, now I have the full bootcamp track! This is what I was waiting for:
full_stack_web_dev._with_react
I also started tracking my time using Toggl solely because I was interested in exactly how long this bootcamp is going to take. Well, that and yesterday my wife asked me how much time I got to spend on school so now I’ll know. Started on some Ruby this morning and also learned that career placement starts when 75% of the curriculum is done (after Rails is complete). This makes sense as the Flatiron path takes me through a bunch in the Ruby ecosystem then on the back end teaches React and Node.js. I had been thinking to myself, once I was done with all the Ruby learning and started working on the JS portion of the curriculum I could start searching for Ruby jobs.

Quote from this morning that stuck with me:

This is one of the best parts of programming: debugging and fixing errors. It’s like you’re a detective solving a crime. The only bad thing is that more often than not, you’re also the criminal that caused the error in the first place.

Now the end of the day and lots more Ruby is in my brain. The thing that is sticking the most (besides the code) is how similar JS & Ruby are. I now understand more why most seasoned developers say it doesn’t matter what language you learn first, just stick with one and learn it. Lots of the concepts are exactly the same across languages the syntax is the only difference. If you can learn a development language then you can learn where to put a semicolon or parenthesis.

Today Flatiron also started migrating their chat feature back to Slack. Apparently they tried to build their own chat into their learning platform but decided that Slack was a better option. Makes sense as Slack does it well. It’ll be a long time before they get anywhere near the user limit that Free Code Camp hit back in the day. Yes, there is a limit to the number of users a Slack channel can have and you can read about it here. I actually don’t know if this is still true and honestly don’t care enough to find out.

Something new I’m going to add every day is a short update at the end of the post (I’m guessing 4 hours of work done yesterday):
Time spent today: 2:18
Time spent total: 6:18
Lessons completed today: 25

Until tomorrow.

Day 1

Day 1 is finally upon me! I’ve got my setup ready as of last night after making a road trip to IKEA in Memphis, TN. After the price of gas I probably could have gotten a desk, chair, and that plastic thing you put on the floor for the same price here in Nashville but why not go to IKEA? I also know people are crazy for IKEA stuff so if we end up getting rid of this stuff someone will buy it quick!

Yes, that’s a stack of high school yearbooks propping up the laptop to almost eye level. As I’m not working right now a few niceties had to be skipped. Like, I would’ve loved a 27” monitor on an articulating arm, but, in the future. This setup worked surprisingly well. Although, the $50 IKEA chair isn’t as comfortable as pretty much any other desk chair I’ve ever used. It gets the job done though and it’ll force me to stand up every once and a while.

Coding wise it was a good day. I’m still in the Bootcamp Prep track but I chatted with someone much further along and they said it rolls right into it so it’s not a waste of time. I was also informed the full track should open up for me tomorrow as it might take a day for my payment to clear. I completed 24 JavaScript lessons today and worked for probably <4 hours. Up at 6am and coding by about 7am. Then stopping at 8am when the kids got up. About an hour during nap time. Then back at it after dinner but before the kiddos bedtime and right until now (shy of 10pm). I should be in bed by 10pm getting me my 8 hours. This is my schedule for almost all weekdays now.

While a most of the work I did today was review or reinforcing things I did learn some stuff. The biggest thing is arrow functions in ES6. I didn’t dive into it but saw a comment on Facebook regarding using Babel so ES6 things are supported across most web browsers. Oh yeah, back to arrow functions. They take the word function out of the function. I thought this was awesome since I know I’m going to be doing a lot of typing.

Here’s the quick rundown on how they work:

var regularFunction = function() {
console.log('I was called!')
}

var arrowFunction = () => {
console.log('I was called, too!')
}

regularFunction() // 'I was called!'
arrowFunction() // 'I was called, too!'

I won’t go deep into arrow functions (get more at MDN and here) but this can save typing of the word “function” a lot. Unfortunately, while trying to use this on lessons I ran into it not passing tests. It seems like not all of the Bootcamp Prep lesson plan has been updated to support ES6 just yet. I did talk to a mentor person who said lessons should allow for ES6 though, so that’s good. I’d like to build good habit using some of the newer syntax when I can.

Now, bedtime.

Before I Start Flatiron

There were a few things I had to get out of the way before I started Flatiron.

First, I needed a solid schedule I was going to follow. I didn’t want to take 8 months to finish the program. In fact, I couldn’t take 8 months to finish the program as my expenses were too much to stretch that long. I also wanted to minimize my family’s child care expenses so I came up with a solid schedule:
M-Th 6am-7am personal care (shower, breakfast, walk dog, etc…) 7am-8am (or whenever kids wake up) Flatiron. 8am-8pm family/kids. 8pm-10pm Flatiron. 3 hrs/day.
Fri-Sun 8am-10pm Flatiron (1 hour lunch & dinner). 12 hrs/day.
Total 53 hours of school per week.
~800 hours to graduation = 15 weeks.
This seemed doable as my former career in restaurant management had me working 55 hours standard.

Secondly, I needed somewhere to do this work. The house we had just built had a closed in office which was not in use. So I skimmed IKEA’s website and picked out a desk and chair. Granted IKEA is 3 hours away from my house so it will be a pain to go pick it up but spending $100 on a desk, chair, and that plastic thing you put on the carpet so a chair can roll seemed like it was worth it.

Overall the plan was coming together.

The Science of Getting Rich – A Classic

the science of getting richEven though The Science of Getting Rich was released over a century ago, there are heaps of ideas inside it if you’re keen to make a seriously better lifestyle for you, your loved ones and the community in general. You acquire what you own because of doing things by a variety of means and the ones that are successful are likely to stick to those reasons and apply them to other endeavors and keep growing rich. People who’ve not worked out the way to use these techniques – and it doesn’t matter how well they perform or how dedicated to their obligations they happen to be, they may never become successful. Wallace Wattles declares in this book that anyone that can follow this formula could definitely grow rich.

So where is This Century-Old Secret?

Being conscious of the correct way to go about getting rich is paramount and the part that is made public by Mr. Wattles, is in your head. The basic beliefs are rather like Steve Pavlina’s concepts in his The Law of Attraction. You are in command over exactly what you do, so for everyone who is continually screwing up and getting things wrong, it’s time to face the reasons explaining why. The causes of an absence of success happen to be within your own unconscious mind. Nonetheless those people that are terribly successful may be seen as being born with this power of effective thinking and they appear to grow into entrepreneurs naturally. The Science of Growing Rich was created in order that everybody could get a positive mind-set, a positive attitude and carry that attitude out into their daily lives to win gigantic success.

The Power of Human Will

Your will is why you choose to do things, and why you do not do things as well . Will is why a large amount of folk leap out of bed before the alarm goes off, whereas others go back to s1eep and dedicate their entire lives being consistently behind. The first kind are full of enthusiasm and expectancies for their day and the second potentially are thinking adversely, unless they’ve already been handed lots of money or won the lotto, those individuals do not end up being rich.

Download Your Free Copy of The Science of Getting Rich Here

The Science of Getting Rich can be discovered here today positively free in .pdf format. This book has empowered lots of folks, as well as Rebecca Fine who’s applied the basic tenets behind the book and made a training course that has been brought to just about every country across the world, inspiring individuals to make an effort and change their method of thinking to positive.

A massive number of individuals have experienced extraordinary benefits as a result of adopting the advice contained in the Science of Getting Rich.

I quickly learned that not only is there a science but a system. The best system to apply The Science of Getting Rich is Biz Builder University. What better place to learn a science then in a university right?

It is easy to become overwhelmed these days with the large number of methods and plans there available about achieving personal success, but this book might have easily fallen into obscurity if it did not contain such a great deal of amazing information. Download your copy of The Science of Getting Rich here today and see why this book continues to be republished after a century.

Seth Alexander

Faster Site Loads via CloudFlare

cloudflareSo from now on this site should load A LOT faster thanks to CloudFlare. Like 60%+ faster and that’s just right now. I recently started using CloudFlare and I highly suggest them to anyone who runs a website. I also have been optimizing and changing some options around in the backend. If you noticed that I haven’t posted for a while it’s partly because of this. My server was compromised and some malicious code was injected into my sites. I had to backup and completely rebuild the site from scratch.

One positive of this is that I had the chance to remove some and install some things better than the first time. I have learned a lot since I originally put this site online and now you should benefit from it. Be on the lookout for another product launch coming soon as well as a lot more blog posts as I delve into the world or article marketing.

Take this as a short CloudFlare review and remember the best part, CloudFlare is free for a single site account!

Two people you need in your professional life

My take on Seth Godin’s recent post: Two people you might need in your professional life. I consider them necessary instead of optional.

An agonist. An agonist causes action to happen. They are more than a muse. They force you to take action and that is something I believe most of us need to create our best work. Not that the agonist will get us creating our best work all the time but in the end we will all be better because of them.

And of course, a procrastinatrix. A person whose sole function is to make sure you get it done now, rather than later.

In an online business world where we are our own bosses, these two people are more important than ever. Do not trick yourself into believe you can do these jobs yourself. If you think you do both of these jobs already I challenge you to spend the time and the money to find a person to do these jobs for you. Then compare the before and after results. Neither of these jobs is very hard, however, they are very hard to do yourself.

Seth Alexander