day 01 - an introduction and udemy courses are hit or miss.

Years ago (1999) I taught myself html and css to impress my step father who was just getting into computers heavily. I built 3 or 4 sites all in notepad and showed him and he was mildly amused. I was proud of myself and in awe that i could type something into a blank text document and create something out of thin air. Eventually i got distracted by graffiti and girls and stopped coding but I still loved technology. fast forward to the early aughts and I was hanging out with my friend Josh. He was sitting at a computer and he seemed frustrated. This was the time when custom myspace profiles were all the rage and he was trying to customize his but not having any luck. I took a look and realized it was just custom CSS and HTML and began helping him. Together we built a completely unique layout and two days later I built a theme that was even more unique, and told him to look at it through AIM. His response was "check this out" and sent me a link to his which was also incredible. this began a 6 month competition where we were constantly out doing each other. I was having a blast doing it but I had no idea you could make a career out of it, so I kept working dead end jobs, looking for a purpose. In 2013 I found it! I was going to be a stand up comedian.

For the last 9 years I've been pursuing that dream and though I have hit some big milestones (was asked to perform on tv, make a percentage of my monthly income doing stand up, performed all over the country) I still have a ways to go before I can make a decent living solely doing stand up. Right now I do various odd jobs (gig work, shifts at restaurants, etc) to supplement the income I make from stand up. I hate it. I don't want to give up completely on comedy but being a starving artist is a lot harder to do as I see 40 approaching. I need something that pays well, that I enjoy doing, and that I can occasionally do from a hotel room on a Friday morning while I wait to perform on Friday night in a small town that is in need of entertainment. I need to be a front end developer.

over the years I've kept up with some of the technologies (css/html mostly) and I've even used them to build custom wordpress themes and static sites for myself and other comedians or friends. I know becoming an entry level front end developer is going to involve a lot of learning and dedication and I'm willing to do the work. I did some research and a lot of people on Youtube recommended Angela Yu's Web Development Course on Udemy, I immediately bought it and dove in. I like her way of teaching and her personality. When she said that she's into making her own beer, martial arts, and motorcycles I thought "she seems like she'd be cool to hang out with" but a few lessons into the course she started talking about building tables for an html project I thought "Oh bummer, even I know that is not the way things are done anymore". I googled reviews and found a large amount of reddit posts saying her course was extremely outdated and not optimal to learn from anymore. most people recommended The Odin Project and a course on Udemy taught by Colt Steele.

I like learning by video so I Purchased the Steele course and I am currently at the beginning of the HTML section (going to do the whole course even though I feel like i have a firm grasp on HTML and CSS) and excited to learn. After I finish this course I am going to do The Odin Project and then I have three web app ideas that haven't been done to death that I am going to build to flesh out the portfolio, then start applying for jobs. I've started this blog to track my progress and also in the hopes that anyone that has thought about doing this can get a completely honest view on what it takes. I might fail and if I do that will be documented as well. Either way, wish me luck.