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Warren Shea

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…in one year…

Friday, January 7th, 2011 at 11:59 pm

Today is a special day for me.

This day represents a number of things making it one of the most important days of my life. Today marks the one year anniversary of the day I quit WoW and began a new life…

You might be thinking “So you quit playing a game, that’s not a big deal…”. You’ve got some nerve…
Quitting WoW was a big deal, not because I was quitting a game, but because of the amount of time I spent playing this game and the adverse affect playing it had on my life and mental growth.

What my life was like before January 7, 2010

I had 400 days of playtime between March 2005 and January 2010. That’s 400 days of playtime within 57 months ( = 4.75 years = 1734~ days ).
At 400 days of playtime in 1734 days, that’s an average of 0.23 = 23% of the day = 331.2 minutes = 5.5 hours/day…everyday…for 4.75 years.
It was another huge aspect of my life, more or less equal to that of my professional life.

In the years after school, during work, my week of 168 hours (24×7) was split up into:

  • 45 hours of work a week (including commute time)
  • 56 hours of sleep a week (at an average of 8 hours/day)
  • 50 hours of WoW a week
  • 17 hours for everything else – going out, hygiene tasks, laundry, playing other non-WoW games, drawing, coding….

Despite the game taking so much of my life, I was able to:

  • Maintain my girlfriend for 6 years
  • Excel in my professional career

The items that were strained were:

  • Time with friends (and family)

And the things that were sacrificed were:

  • School

This was literally my schedule the weeks before I quit WoW – it’s absurd to the point that it seems like a joke, but it’s not. I played WoW every moment I could while I was awake and not at work or sleeping. While this isn’t completely accurate as I’d occasionally go out, watch a movie, go out to eat/eat, etc…this was always my weekly plan.
WoW schedule

After January 7, 2010
This was my schedule after I quit WoW. Look at all that time. My life, no longer surrounded by WoW.
WoW schedule

So with my new found free time, I began a number of tasks making this year possibly the most productive year I’ve had in my life. I accomplished so much this year, relative to the years I’d wasted playing WoW.

What I’ve done in the last year

warrenshea.com
I finally got off my ass and created a personal site, something I had intended to do for years. I’m quite happy with it, I was able to integrate WordPress into my code. I was able to move 3 months worth of posts from Blogger to WordPress.
I created 4 different themes which are fairly different visually…though the layout is fundamentally the same, something I hope to change with future themes.

Blogging
300 posts since my first one, on Jan 26, 2010.
300 posts in 12 months is, on average, roughly 25.25 posts/month. That…is a lot of posts.

Twitter
1486 tweets (tho this seems to be incorrect – damn you twitter!) since Jan 18, 2010.
Not that the number of tweets is an accomplishment, it’s more the fact that I didn’t stop using it like I do so many other things.

Improved development skills
Learned general PHP. Went from comfort level 0 to comfort level 8, my skill is probably still around 6-7 though…
Improved ASP.NET C# 3.5. Despite all my studying and development this year, I’d still only give myself a 3 in terms of knowledge. Maybe a 1-2 before this year. I hope to bump that up…
Improved XHTML 1.0 and CSS 2.0 skills
Improved jQuery, Web Accessibility knowledge

Reading
Actually read some novels, a format of media I haven’t touched in years. Completed 4~ novels in the last few months. While I’m generally always reading (Comics, Graphic Novels, Manga), novels have always been something I’ve generally avoided. Too many words. Not enough pictures :) It is an accomplishment for someone like me, to have read 4~ novels among the other things I do/read.

Gaming
This area has been relatively quiet. Nothing worth of note, no long games I would claim as achievements for completion.

Art
This area has also been pretty quiet this year. While drawing is/has always been a hobby of mine, my skill has never been good enough to make it anything more than a hobby, which is why it’s something I’ll only do when I feel like it, I have no desire to improve my skills here.

What I hope to accomplish this year

warrenshea.com
Do I have anything left other than some themes? In a perfect world, I’d like to maintain 2 sites for myself.

warrenshea.com as a professional/resume type site
yet_to_be_determined.com as a personal site, with blog posts, etc. kind of like what I have now but without the projects and resume section. A fully personal site.

I would still like to do a few themes, a professional one, maybe another “theme” one like Megaman/Naruto….but of what? Prince of Tennis, Death Note, Hikaru no Go come to mind…
I would like to scrap it all and re-build it now my CSS and HTML skills are much higher than they were a year ago. I would use SASS rather than CSS. I would use HTML5 rather than XHTML 1.0. I would organize my <h#> tags better, since WordPress uses <H2>, I would use…other ones. I would get rid of my general hate of <p> tags and use them over my <br /> tags…

Blogging
I’ve blogged too much last year. Ever since I got sick with the flu, I feel like I’ve been less inclined to blog.
If I’m the type of person to always be addicted to something, blogging would definitely be the World of Warcraft replacement of this year. Considering how much time I blog/write, while it’s significantly less than WoW, it’s the thing I’ve consistently spent the most time on this year. My WordPress is open 80% of the time I’m at my comp and I have so have drafts I haven’t posted…topics that seem relevant at the time and that I enjoy writing but don’t enjoy proof reading.

For blogging this year, I hope it becomes secondary to studying web development, which I’m going to try to make my new addiction (if it were at all possible to force an addiction…). I definitely know I will be blogging less this year. If there were 300 posts last year, I hope to keep it around 150-200 posts this year…and that’s fine with me. I’ve blogged my brains out, it’s time to move on and do something else.

Reading, Gaming, Art
These are no longer goals (except Zelda: Ocarina of Time…and maybe another RPG). I’m done trying to do these things if they interfere with…

Improving development skills
My goals this year is to improve in ASP.NET C#, CSS3. and HTML5. Of the things I want to learn and become proficient in, it’s definitely these 3 items, with a significance on ASP.NET C#. While this has been my goal every year for a few years, I expect this year to be the year that I catch up to the development world. Last year was getting over WoW, it was setting up warrenshea.com and learning PHP, and improving my skills all around. This year is all about going from a 3 in knowledge to an 8 in ASP.NET C#. CSS3 and HTML5 take a back seat to that but are still things I’d like to learn over the next year.

The skill increase leads to…

Epic Site
This is the year that I’m going to do it. I’m going to try to spend time learning ASP.NET C# (again), and really focus on getting this up and running.

How I’ve changed professionally this last year

There have been a couple ups but a lot of downs in my professional life this year, more so than any other year in my life. It has been extremely difficult year.

Roughly 1/4 into the year, my team had a (figurative) bomb dropped on us one Thursday making the next day, Friday, the worst day of work I had ever experienced and ever hope to experience. Personal morale was so low, I didn’t even know this job could affect me that much. Thinking about that day and the reasons why it occurred…it honestly makes me sick to my stomach. It may have even been the worst day of my life this year (in terms of how I felt emotionally)…though that day has some competition………

Roughly half way into the year, I had another professionally crushing moment leaving me depressed for months. While it’s been almost 1/2 a year since it occurred, I know I haven’t recovered from this. There’s still a bitter taste in my mouth that I don’t think I’ll ever get rid of as it’s something I have to face every single day of work.

As this year ends, I wonder if I can take another year like this one. As my ambition increased, so did my disappointment. As I start to care more about my job and career, the more I start to dislike it. It was much easier coming in to work every morning, doing task A, B, and C, and leaving know I’d accomplished A, B, and C. It seems like these days are: doing task A, going to meeting B, going to meeting C, doing task A, meeting D, leaving task A for tomorrow. Like I’m not doing anything. Nothing of personal value/pride/gain. I think I work best doing small tasks quickly and well. Quantity is an important aspect of my professional life. Without frequent moments of pride, I can’t help but feel…unmotivated and aimless. I hate long projects that last more than a couple weeks and that’s honestly all I have I right now.

To be honest, I don’t think I’d dislike what I’m doing now if not for what happened earlier this year. If I’ve changed at all this year regarding my outlook on my professional career, it is that I’m less naive. But I’m also very bitter. I’ve been burned so many times this year…it’s harder and harder to keep my work smile.

How I hope to change professionally this year

There’s a certain groove I used to have when I worked. I didn’t care about anything political, I did a good job on what I worked on, woke up every morning ready to tackle my projects, and left every day knowing I’d accomplished and learned enough that I wouldn’t carry the thought of work with me. I’ve lost that this year but I want to recapture it, somehow. I don’t quite know how yet…but I want to make work fun again. It hasn’t been for a while…not like it used to be.

How I’ve changed in my mindset of relationships and love this last year.

This year was a big year for me. I was able to finally answer a life-long question/riddle/dilemma that had plagued me for years. There had been something I’d been wondering, if the path I’d been on had been correct or not. It was always a nagging thought in the back of my mind but I’ve finally put it to rest. I can’t stress how important it is to answer a riddle that only you can answer and have no means of figuring out other than….you just realize it. It’s so…settling. I feel so relieved :)

…in one year…

How much will change by Jan 7, 2012?
What will I accomplish?
How will my life have changed?
What will I have figured out?

We’ll see….in one year…

Posted in All Posts, Blogging, Daily Randomness, Epic Site (yet to be named), Games, Introspection, Love, My Life, Past, Web Developer, Work, World of Warcraft, worldofwarren.com, Writing | 2 Comments »

Ambition

Thursday, September 30th, 2010 at 7:32 pm

Ambition is the desire for personal achievement. It provides the motivation and determination necessary to help give direction to life. Ambitious people seek to be the best at what they choose to do for attainment, power, or superiority. Ambition can also be defined as the object of this desire. – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambition

I guess it was always there. From my perspective, I see ambitious people as those who want to get power or superiority. In the work force, it’s those who want to quickly climb the ranks and rise to the top. You can see them. You know who wants the job of the one they’re under. “Gekokujou” (下克上) meaning “to defeat the greater and take his place” – Wakashi Hiyoshi, Hyōtei Gakuen

Why I wouldn’t call myself ambitious is because I didn’t see myself as fitting that description. I don’t want to manage people which tend to be something people often do when they rise up. I was perfectly happy doing my daily work/routine. When I didn’t get promoted, it originally didn’t bother me. I was okay with it for a few days. I didn’t really think about it even. And then, a few days later, a conversation came up where the topic of what would be done in the future was covered. It was at that point that it hit me, and hit me hard. There were all these really interesting projects planned. And as we were going through them, my initial reaction of “oh, this sounds exciting….maybe I can work on this, maybe I can work on that…” turned into “I’m not going to be working on any of this”. Because the new projects were for senior developers, And I wasn’t going to be one.

It was at that point I realized: I did not want to do what I’d been doing for the last 2-3 years any longer. I wanted to be part of all the bigger projects. I felt I was ready. Which led to this post: http://www.warrenshea.com/?p=928

So my ambition is a bit different than what I saw ambition to be, power and superiority. Though the titles and pay are nicer the higher you go, that’s not what drives me. I’m ambitious in terms of knowledge attainment. It seems more passive…which I don’t see ambition as. But I’m driven by learning and working on interesting things. Again, it all comes from what you want…and everyone’s different. I don’t want to be bored in life. And by bored, I don’t mean I want/need to travel, don’t need to see this or go to that. I don’t want to be bored in the things I think about or the things I work on. I’m really driven by doing interesting work. I would much rather code than go have a beer or go clubbing. I’d rather sit and talk to someone about philosophy, sociology, psychology, the WHYs of the world than talk about the WHATs or the WHOs. It’s not normal but that’s who I am.

This post didn’t come out nearly at all how I envisioned. It was originally about being ambitious because I’m highly competitive and motivated by competition. But I didn’t discuss that at all in the above. As I started to write, what I wrote above made more sense than what I originally wanted to write about. I learned something about myself in this post, I like how blogging and writing can do that sometimes. The written work just takes a life of its own and you do something that, despite coming from your own thoughts, surprises you.

Posted in All Posts, Introspection, My Life | 6 Comments »

“Å“Yes” Man

Wednesday, September 29th, 2010 at 5:50 pm

A co-worker called me a “Yes Man” today.

The term yes man is typically used for an employee who agrees with every statement of his or her employer.[1] Some synonyms of yes man are flunky, stooge, suck-up, kiss-ass, and sycophant; all of which have pejorative connotations.[2] Such a person may also be referred to as a lapdog.[3] – from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_man

I didn’t disagree with him but it got me thinking…I DO do things that help my team/department at the cost of my personal time or needs. I don’t volunteer to stay late but will if they ask. Today, I didn’t go for lunch, even though I was starving, because someone asked me to jump in an impromptu meeting. This person even asked if he should reschedule, feeling bad to dump the task and responsibility on me but I said it was okay, even when it really wasn’t (I was really hungry!).

Throughout my professional life, I have been called a kiss ass. In my third work term, my co-worker (another UWaterloo co-op) called me a “brown nose”. I took quite a bit of offense…but you know, it’s true.

I realize that professionally, I’m very selfless. I often stay late, finishing up other people’s work because I can do it faster (and better) than they can – it makes sense on an efficiency and personal pride level. I’d rather do something myself and do it right than have to explain it. I’m extremely reliable (yes, you read that right, extremely reliable) and often called “the one who catches others when they fall”. It’s all part of my professional self, “Work Warren”. Work Warren is organized, courteous, hard working, considerate, reliable. Though he gets distracted easily…cuz some things I can’t change.

Part of this high standard of professional work is actually an individual trait: personal pride and individual ego. Pride in the work I do, pride in doing this well and/or better than others.

What’s interesting is that individually, and outside of work, I’m very selfish. I rarely do things I don’t want to do. “F*ck everyone else, I’m looking out for me. Everyone else can take care of themselves.” I will avoid doing “nice gestures”, driving people around, offering rides, etc. if there’s no benefit to me or if it takes me out of my way. I will donate to a charity not because it’s the right thing to do or because I believe in any cause, but because I don’t want to look like the selfish person I am – in that sense, everyone wins :D I’ve said it before but if I really lived my selfish life the way I want, I would lose almost everything. I would much rather sacrifice a bit of selfishness and be a little selfless to overall live a better life. Just the same, I would rather sacrifice part of my life working to overall live a better life. Doing everything you want in life will result in failure. You have to do stuff you don’t want to do to achieve long term happiness.

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“Very selfless professionally. Very selfish individually.”

While thinking of this post, I kept repeating those words in my head. It actually works out pretty well for me. Except that I stay late which interferes with personal time. In that sense, I (surprisingly) put professional career above personal life. Which all leads to my realization that I’m ambitious and want to be successful in my professional career, even at the cost of myself.

I don’t know if others see me as professionally ambitious but I’m really surprised to realize that I am. I would say I’m not, probably even think it…..but subconsciously, I really am.

Posted in All Posts, Introspection, My Life, Work | No Comments »

I feel unsettled. The question is: why?

Friday, September 3rd, 2010 at 1:51 am

Every once in a while, I have days where something doesn’t feel right. I’m unsettled. And I have no idea why…it’s sort of like depression but not quite…

It’s a feeling of…being unsettled, I don’t quite know how to explain it better. I start to question myself:
Is this where I want to be? Is my life on the right track? Why do I feel this way and how can I fix it?

The result is quite a bit of introspection.

So I’m going to write the things I thought about today…in a good day of self-reflection and self-analysis.

Work
I was feeling unsettled at work. Questioning if I’m where I want to be. I looked at the projects I’ve done and the projects that I’m looking forward to doing. The result was pretty disappointing. The projects I’ve liked have been the ones that I’ve started on my own, because I thought things could be better or streamlined. Or because I thought it’d be fun to develop, so I threw a business case around it :) The fun I have at work occurs when I make my own projects. When I look towards the future, are there enough interesting projects to satisfy my professional interest?

There are a lot of PROs of my current job and few CONs (everytime I make PRO CON lists, I think of Rory in Gilmore Girls…I remember her saying “Do not mock my Pro/Con list”…I ask the same of you as well).
PROs:
– I work in a centralized internet web team. What this means is that, from a learning perspective, I’m able to use, understand, and learn from various content management system. Well over 10 in my 3 years with this group. We work on tons of different platforms, sites, languages. I’m worried that if I were to go somewhere else, I might only be exposed to a few systems. What if they aren’t what I like? What if the tools are terrible? A strong reason why I like this job is I’m learning about a lot of things, learning from tons of different directions. Being a jack of all trades, my forte.
– I’m part of an internet team meaning: my stuff is public. And I’ve thought about this a number of times, I would not want to do intranet stuff. I enjoy being able to look/show others what I’ve done if there’s an internet connection available. I like that I can put things in my portfolio or resume that I’m allowed to. If I did intranet stuff, basically ALL my stuff would be locked down. Unable to show anyone or discuss.
– I’m in a team that, while we use outdated CMS systems, also explore new and exciting things around the web. Social media (Facebook, Twitter, Blogging) for example, maybe something with mobile devices, it’s the web…but a different part of the web. It’s brand new and exciting.

Basically, of all the places inside a large corporation that I could be, I’m exactly where I want to be. An important member of the main internet web team.

CONs:
– Working on an internet team means that you can’t use a lot of the technologies/techniques out there. A glaring one is PHP. We will NEVER do anything in PHP because of the lack of support. It’s disappointing as it’s something I would like to learn more about. Granted, I’m able to develop in PHP internally but that means the only time I would use it would be for a personal/internal project. And I do not want to do intranet stuff :P
– I’m starting to get tired of doing work below my skill. Granted, I’ve gotten less and less of that within the last few years but even the mindless jobs that I didn’t use to mind are starting to bother me. I ask myself “why am I doing this? is this what I want to be doing?”…which led to the last piece of written text.

There are more PROs, being close to home, flexible hours, being able to work from home, being one of the most important developers on the team and having the ability to pass off the crappy work I don’t wanna do delegate.

It looks like there may be lots of exciting, interesting work in the future for me so…to answer my questions:
Is this where I want to be?
Right now, the answer is yes.

My website: Themes
It’s pretty obvious that my themes idea has been a failure. It’s not like I haven’t been doing anything with my site. I’ve been blogging somewhat consistently though I haven’t been updating other aspects of my site like I usually do. The various sections, Hobbies and Projects, Gallery, and Language Reference are updated slowly and in some cases, never (poor Language Reference section :( ). It’s been so difficult doing/conceptualizing themes and I finally figured out why.

The difference with my site and http://www.csszengarden.com/ is that my site is ultimately more complicated. The buckets of content change frequently and there’s only 1 level of navigation. I’ve wanted to make 2 levels of navigation but it would be impossible to develop any kind of functional/interesting navigation that’s compatible with multiple CSS files. I would want a jQuery or DHTML or JavaScript navigation…but would that be adaptable by simply changing the CSS? The answer is no. Not only the navigation but the other aspect that would trouble me in the “Choose your theme” menu. Building it with my Blogger theme is easy, they’re just links. But even my Megaman theme, with the buttons, animated gif during mouseover….to create that solely with html and CSS would be impossible. So how did I create it? it’s a function in JavaScript. What’s preventing me from calling functions to create the menus in JavaScript? Nothing…except it’s ridiculously annoying to document.write HTML in a JavaScript file/syntax.

And so, I had an epiphany. But I’m slightly embarrassed as to why I didn’t think of this earlier. I will create the navigation and choose your theme…in PHP during the rendering of the site, and not have it created client side with JavaScript. Why didn’t I do this earlier? It goes against the CSS Zen Garden concept…which is what the themes idea is fundamentally about (that the site can change entirely with a simple change of CSS). But I’ve come to the conclusion that I will have to leave behind the resolve of mine to mimic that style of site if I truly wish to create an interesting, dynamic site with different types of navigations and different site personalities.

I’m going to spend my next major site updates converting the navigation and choose your theme code to be built in PHP and not JavaScript. With the ability to create new, interesting navigations and choose your theme menus, as complicated as I wish, I no longer have to think inside the box regarding the different themes I wanted to do. It will make the concept I have for the Naruto theme, and other themes I have in mind, way better.

My website: Content
I’m planning to restructure my site and its content in the near future. I’m unsatisfied with the navigation and the tabs. I’m limited to the amount of horizontal space on a single line for the navigation. I want to change that.

Home/Blog
About me – Portfolio – Resume
Hobbies & Projects – Galleries
References and Links – Language Reference – Site Reference/Links
Basically…4 buckets? I don’t know, I just made that list up on the fly…I will give it more thought. I definitely see that my site is….organizationally challenged.

I dislike the number of files I have, the number of if statements for editing content. I dislike that this site doesn’t really use a database and that my galleries is created with some PHP and creative client side thinking. It still doesn’t compare, efficiently, to what could be done with XML and AJAX, something I might pursue for my gallery. I need an easier way to update my pages…a CMS maybe but I doubt it’s worth it to build that. There are other projects I’d like to do….

Personal happiness
Going back to feeling unsettled, I always question my own personal happiness. When I was younger, I used to play this “why?” game with myself. I would say a random statement and ask myself “why?” repeatedly and I would ultimately always find my own personal meaning of life. For example:
1.
Warren A: I buy toys.
Warren B: Why?
Warren A: Because I enjoy displaying them, looking at them.
Warren B: Why?
Warren A: Because it reminds me what it’s like to be a child.
Warren B: Why?
Warren A: Because adults generally tend to forget the child within them, it’s something I never want to do.
Warren B: Why?
Warren A: Because it’s a time of innocence, a time of pure-hearted fun. The feeling I get when I’m reminded of a time like that is precious to me.
Warren B: Why?
Warren A: Because it makes me happy. And living a happy life is important to me because why would you want to live life any other way?

2.
Warren A: I work.
Warren B: Why?
Warren A: Because I need money.
Warren B: Why?
Warren A: Because money pays for food, shelter, and fun. Without money life would be difficult.
Warren B: Why (is that important)?
Warren A: Because I don’t want to lead a difficult life. I want one free of monetary stress. Because having more money will ultimately make me happier than not having it. And living a happy life is important to me because why would you want to live life any other way?

…..Okay, I think it sounds better in my head than written out. The idea is that fundamentally, you want to make yourself happy (that doesn’t sound right :/ ). Life is what you make of it and quite possibly THE underlying goal in my life is to be happy in it. And if I have to work hard or sacrifice things to achieve that, so be it. But I do believe you can work hard and still do something fun, something that makes you happy. Which is why I’m a web developer, combining hobby with profession. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Conclusion
Back to the original issue…on a day like today, where I feel unsettled, I ask myself: Why? Why do I feel this way and how can I fix it? And when I look at my life and it’s fundamental goal of being happy, I don’t think there IS anything to fix. I’m in good health (for now). I’m in a stable, long-term relationship. I have a stable job that I enjoy. I have friends, family, pets. I do have any worries. I don’t have anything to complain about really…So why do I feel unsettled?

The truth is that I can’t come up with anything. So maybe nothing’s wrong.

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I took a nap when I got home, after feeling unsettled for about 10 hours. And after a 1 hour nap, I felt fine. Looking at the world through refreshed eyes. Honestly, the only reason I can think of as to why I had this unsettling feeling…was a bad night’s sleep.

So that answers the titular question.

/poor climax is disappointing

Posted in All Posts, Development, Introspection, My Life, Site Updates, Work | 1 Comment »

The (2) real reasons why I couldn’t be a designer

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010 at 11:58 pm

1. I’m sensitive. I don’t take criticism too well…bad criticism can get be down, depressed, etc. I don’t handle constructive criticism too well either, or even compliments. Basically: I don’t want to be told what you think of me or my work, good or bad. I’m paranoid that I think that if I get compliments, it could be genuine or it could be an act towards letting my guard down so that someone could take advantage. Paranoid much? (that’s me talking to myself).

The real reason that I could never be a designer is:
2. I’m arrogant and I have too much pride. I take a lot of pride in my work, I’m pixel perfect with design, I try to keep my code clean, I do a lot of the little things most people ignore/don’t care about…because I care about everything I do (that I care about). If that makes sense…

But the thing with design, that’s so different from development, is that design is subjective. I could do my best work, something I’ve worked hard in and take pride in, show it to someone and they can say they don’t like it. And it’s their right. But I can’t take it. I can’t handle when the awesome stuff I’ve done…isn’t awesome in someone else’s eyes. Now, that’s life, I should get used to it. The problem is that I had done design for years now. I’d been an artist most of my life, been naturally talented (not enough to be professional). And then I’d have joe schmo <insert lame banking desk job&th; saying my stuff was no good. Pissed me off. Who the F*** are you to tell me you don’t like my stuff?!

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. (time passes)
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I’m looking up “design is subjective” in Google…and it’s telling me Good design is not subjective. And you know what, I believe that. Meaning a lot of things:

      1. Maybe my designs in the past weren’t that good. Despite my pride and hard work, maybe I wasn’t looking objectively. Maybe there was too much of my pride in my work and not enough skill/talent.
      2. Maybe joe schmo was right all along. Maybe my designs weren’t good enough that they weren’t “good design”. Which means a lot of things:
        1. Despite some natural talent/skill, without hard work and formal training/education, I could never be great
        2. I made the right choice giving up design a couple years ago and focusing on development, which I have to say, the ol’ brain enjoys. And I take more pride in dev because less people do/understand dev than they can/do design. Well, I imagine….that last statement is not backed up by any facts >_>

I’ll leave design to the professionals. The ones that read about design, the ones that blog and tweet about it, the ones that do research outside of work, the ones with textbooks on design, the ones that are formally trained/educated in that area (and I can only think of one person like that, he sits near me at work).

I’ll leave development to the professionals too. The ones that read about development, the ones that blog and tweet about it, the ones that do research outside of work, the ones with textbooks on development, the ones that are formally trained/educated in that area. Wait, that’s me :D (and yeah, I re-wrote and set that whole paragraph up…to prove/show that I’m a professional developer….boo-yeah). Like settin’ up my own jokes. Your mom.

/realizing this post has a lot of attitude and fun in it….I honestly have to thank the Scott Pilgrim books, they gave me a bit of “attitude in writing” inspiration.


that is SO me. especially eating the birthday cake.

Original image from Scott Pilgrim vs. The Universe Vol. 5

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