Greetings!

Hello World!

I'm Adam, an aspiring computer programmer.  I grew up around computers, starting with my Dad's old Kaypro 64, moving up to Commodore 64 (I lusted after a 5 1/4 floppy drive, never got one though).  I learned BASIC.  I remember using Logo and it's little turtle to draw pictures on the screen.  In high school I got my first PC, a Tandy with a 25mhz SX processor (no math coprocessor!) and 1mb RAM.  It had a single speed CD-rom (too slow to even play videos) and a 125mb hard drive.  I was hooked, and spent all my time breaking it and putting it back together.

Convinced that my calling was to be a computer programmer, I enrolled in college and failed spectacularly.  I took too many classes.  I worked a job and did sports.  I was in the honors program.  I just bit off more than I could chew.  A forgivable mistake in hindsight but the blow was tremendous to my 18 year old ego which had found everything to be so easy so far.  I lapsed into a depression that lasted for years.  I got a bullshit job, got promoted up the bullshit job ladder.  I gained a lot of valuable work and management experience but it just never felt right to me.  I wasn't in the place I should be.  At the same time, I still tried to shield myself from my original failure by telling myself that working with computers wasn't the path for me either.  Just something I enjoyed doing in my spare time.

Fast forward and I'm 35 years old with a wife, two small children, and a mortgage.  The plebeian existence I've lived for the last 15 years is beginning to wear on me.  I am tired of bullshit jobs.  Tired of having no money in the bank.  I changed jobs to avoid the commute which is AWESOME but now I make even less money.  My mortgage payment is over half my monthly income.  Stress about money issues is beginning to wear on my relationship.  Time to think about a change.

What about computer programming?  That ship's sailed, right?  There's no way I could go back to school now, I've got too many responsibilities and zero dollars.  Taking two classes a semester and working full time would mean I'd have no time with my family and would take until 40 to get a BS.  And that's also five more years of bullshit jobs.  Taking a bite of the shit sandwich every day for the next five years.  I can't do it, there's got to be a better way.

Hopefully, this blog will chart my course out of poverty and into gainful employment as a computer programmer.  The route I'm forced to take will be an unconventional one, largely self-taught and without any credentials.  Having pored over every reddit post in /r/cscareerquestions/ regarding self-taught successes, I'm reasonably certain it can be done.  Time will tell.

Here's where I'm at right now, the very beginning:
About 8 weeks ago, I signed up for a Coursera course "learn programming" with Python.  I quickly read most of the text and worked my way almost entirely through the book before things began to get difficult and I started to slow down.  The class is now in its 6th week and starting to get interesting.  I'm appreciating the review.

In other python-related stuff, I joined a Learn Python meetup group, began some of the exercises on www.checkio.com and www.projecteuler.net.  Those are challenging.  More to come on that.

After reading reddit for a while and browsing local CL ads for programmers, it seems to me that the quickest way off the bullshit job train is to go into web development.  I can build some websites for folks to earn a bit of $ on the side (and build my savings back up) and also use my python skills for the back-end stuff.  To that end, I've started taking codecademy's HTML/CSS and Javascript classes.

So here's the plan:
I'm a photographer with a half-built website.  My first "project" will be to build a decent website for myself.  Maybe even make a little $$ doing photography?

Next, volunteer my newly formed web builder skills and create a site or two for some local organizations.

With that, I will have a portfolio of web design and I'll start with the CL ads - your website for $300 and up, or whatever.

Alongside that, I'll keep up with the python.  Buy a raspberry pi and set up a home web server.  Install Django and start familiarizing myself with Git and version control.  Write python scripts for little things to make my life easier/more interesting.  Try to work in Javascript (and Node/Angular/JQuery/etc) into those projects and new web sites.  Learn Flask.  Maybe brush up on Illustrator.  Become an HTML/CSS expert.  Databases. Etc.

Then, in a year or so, get a job as a web developer.  If all goes well, the experience I have built with the above will allow me gainful employment as a full stack web developer.  Ideally one which I can work from home part of the time (I live about 30 minutes outside Austin, Texas).  At this point, taking a class or two per semester to work my way towards a BS in computer science doesn't seem like too big a deal.  By the time I'm 40, I'll have 5 years of experience plus a BS and I'll be rocking!

Wish me luck! I'll keep you posted.