A Chat with John Saddington

I've been trying to find time to write this post. And prep yourself for some serious geeking out and a lengthy, pseudo-philosophical ride.

John Saddington

Yesterday, we had a guest speaker for our class. Some guy who just happened to be in town for some convention and would be speaking. I'll be honest, with how bad my allergies had been from my lovely apartment scenario, I was just happy to be breathing without the assistance of 50+ tissues on hand.

...I was not ready for this guy. Turns out - he was one of the founders of Iron Yard. (Which I immediately recalled Emily telling us, and that I had promptly forgotten all about it.)

If you don't know who John Saddington is,  I'll do my best to sum it up: a fucking force. That's who he is. (But seriously, take 5 minutes and just google him.)
This guy is awesome. He started coding around 15 years old. Now, he's worth more money than I think I've ever made in my life with a few extra zeroes behind it. But don't get me wrong - this wasn't some guy coming to tell us to 'do our best and we'll go far'. I mean his opening to us was an apology. It was "I'm sorry guys, I just got in on the red-eye, I've only had coffee, I haven't had my medication, and I'm probably going to swear like a sailor."

I'm already liking this guy.

Coming from someone who can swear like one, I approve

The presentation/talk was pretty informal, but packed with some amazing information. I was surprised by how much of it was a slight variation of the things I had learned in the LA dept. at BSU. The differences, though small, made such a huge difference.

Blogging & Social Media

For example - Saddington has been blogging everyday. ...for the past 14 years. That's insane. 

....but it's not. He talked about the opportunities that have come about because of his blog. At one point he did it professionally (and made over 40K that year from doing so!).  He stressed the importance for us to have blogs up and going now, and the number of people he had talked with over the years wishing they'd started sooner. 

I'm certainly not new to this concept (Thank you, Simon Bussiere), and this was a major component of discussion in the LA program, but there was one thing I was missing: do it even if it looks like crap.  The sheer fact that you're putting something on a page is getting yourself in a step forward. So it looks like crap? So what! You've GOT something out there. You're developing your own 'brand', your own 'flavor'. This applies to design, development, whatever!

For something so simple, why was I missing this? Because of the stress of 'does it look nice?' or 'could this look better?'  John's answer: fuck it. You'll always want to make it look better. Instead, just write. And your content will outweigh the design. Your commitment will speak louder than your template.

"Commitment wins." - John Saddington

He also talked about utilizing/leveraging social media to be used as a tool to further your opportunities and market both yourself and your ideas. Nothing new, again. But I hadn't had anyone ever talk about utilizing less platforms. John talked about how more effective you are when you engage into one or two media forms - and beast mode - versus attempting to keep up with all of them and half-assing it. 

Ron Swanson - my spirit animal.

The Competition

-Cue the Pokemon Theme Song-

Those of you who know me, you're aware that I'm competitive. For those of you who don't know me super well, I'll put it this way: I'm all for playing fair, and making sure everyone has a chance, and making sure that everyone has a great time...but don't expect me to take it easy on you in this board game because it's your first time.

That being said, this is the first time I've ever been in an environment where the mentality wasn't a cut-throat, I've gotta be better scenario. Ok, maybe that's a bit of overkill - but in school, your grades are always compared...to the other students. In this realm, it's you versus yourself. (I will have a full blog post about this in the future, for sure.)

He also talked about how to get yourself in the front-runnings (which I was all ears for hearing). His answers were great. "Ever take an hour and a half lunch? I do. I love 'em. ...fuck em. You can eat in 30 minutes. What the hell were you doing with that hour, anyway?" ...that's entirely true of way too many people - myself included some days.

"Don't be disqualified from opportunities you didn't know you had." - John Saddington

The best advice on how to get forward? Of course it was networking. (Duh!) ...but again with a twist. You go to networking things, right? How many people have you scoped out before you get there? How many people did you meet? How many business cards and contact info did you get? Did you meet them with such an impression that they will remember you? ...and most importantly: did you ask them "what can I do for you?" Create. Value.
That last one kinda took me off guard. I plan on using that as a way to get into the realm of networking and potential hiring work. "What can I do for you?" ...how many people go to networking events and ask that...probably no one.

Overall

I was so inspired that through all the things he was saying, you could just tell he was being real. I can recall sitting across the table from higher ups in companies - CEOs, Presidents, etc. - and feeling like they were simply there to put on the act that they actually listen and give a shit...when they don't. At all.  But they want you to think they do. 

I pride myself on my people skills. I can tell when people are being genuine, or when they're clearly not even remotely interested in what is being said. (It's not a hard skill to learn - try serving. Or acting. Or being that social person at any major gathering. You'll quickly find the people who don't care about anything coming out of your mouth. And you've done it, too.)

But Saddington didn't try to put on a face for us. Yes, the guy who helped to found the program that he was speaking to was asking us to just chat and ask questions. That level of honesty and openness is so rare. And he was really getting to brass tacks at various points. No candy-coating. If it was fucking stupid....he literally said that. And for him to be able to look at someone, tell them they will never be great at this, and still somehow leave an inspiring message for that individual on an individual level...it was brilliant to watch. Yes, that really happened - he said that to one of my classmates. And, contextually, it worked. It made sense. And it inspired that person.

It was uncut. It was rough. It was needed. ...I wish more people communicated like this, and more people were open to getting this level of feedback.

Closing Questions and Remarks

John Finished with asking us a few questions. He also hung around for Q&A for an hour and a half. 

"Don't ask 'where do you want to work?', ask 'who do you want to work with?'" - John Saddington

On educating yourself:
"The goal is not retention. It's resourcing." - from a advisor of John's during grad school

Finally, John asked:

What drives us to do this? 

In order of importance:
I want to make a difference.

I want to build something that people appreciate, use, and love.

I want to be the best version of me I can be. 

I want to never have to worry if I have enough money to get by, ever again.
and ...I want to work for that man. Holy crap.


-Re-cue the Pokemon Theme Song-

Mold and the anti-friends

Mold update

After being told by my apartment complex that the apartment did not show any levels of moisture that could indicate active mold, I was pretty much told, "we're not denying your health issues, but we also don't think it's the apartment". So, in a retrospectively dumb decision, I chose to go back to staying in my apartment. ...and the negative health effects set in almost within 30 min.

I stayed with my brother again, and went to a doctor. The doctor cut me off mid-regaling of the tale to simply say: "It's mold."

Even if there's no moisture present, the spores for whatever mold it is will still be there. The doctor had an impressively accurate guess as to my living situation: guessed the floor, almost guessed the sub-grade design, and guessed the forced air HVAC unit. Per his suggestion, I purchased a mold test kit to mail off after collection. I thought the apartment complex should pay for the testing.

The complex informed me they'll be cleaning the vents in a week, and the test was not necessary, as mold is present in all air (which is true). ...but they're also clearly not invested in finding out what this actually is. They did let me know how odd it is that this should have "popped up over the past couple of weeks, without a trigger " (despite this having symptoms for over a month now, between two roommates.)

I suppose on the plus side, I was offered to be moved to another apartment. ...though I can't say that puts me at ease for the solution to any of this. It almost feels like they're brushing the problem under the rug, so to speak.

But I am back on the road to proper health. Which brings me to...

HTML and CSS: the friends that never were

In light of my regained health, I'm also (re)gaining the fact that I'm a few days behind in my Iron Yard work. (Which is the literal worst. ...imagine me saying that in the most stereotypical 'white-girl' voice ever.)

As such, I'm playing catch-up with the assignments. I've not missed a lecture, thankfully, and I seemed to follow along pretty well with what's been going on. A lot of the communication between a CSS and an HTML file seems strikingly similar to the terms and ideas used in creating presentation boards with Adobe InDesign, which was required for nearly every project presented while in architecture school. ...however, the nesting component of working with the html files, and being able to properly and effectively call out only the pieces needing editing and positioning is turning out to be a real pain.

More to come on this.

Week 2 Recap

2 Down, 12 to go

This week certainly had its obstacles. 

I say this meaning both in terms of my coursework, and life in general. But nonetheless, I trudged through.

Coursework

The coursework for this week was building command line games. I was really excited to get into this; how could you not get excited to be building a game?!

Rochambeau

Also known as 'Rock, Paper, Scissors'

The first game we built was the classic 'Rock, Paper, Scissors'. This tested our user input and made sure we were utilizing the basics of the "if/elsif/else" statements. It was fairly straightforward. I was tempted to, but did not, end up making 'Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock'.

I'm still not sure why paper covers rock counts as a win...

Farkle

The game of guts and glory!

The second game we built was a basic version of the dice game Farkle. As far as the topic of mathematical probability goes...I think I had more interest in the subject after I was old enough to actually go gamble somewhere. Basically, it's a simple 'roll the dice, get points' kind of game. I only built the game to the basics, as I found that when you add the additional rules (as was a portion of the homework on 'Nightmare Mode') ...let's just say it got a bit hairy.

I'm going to pause in the coursework for a moment to interject with a bit of 'fun'. 

...and when I say 'fun', I really mean 'mold that is somewhere hiding in my apartment, causing me to get sick and miss a day of class'.

"My...what...beautiful eyes you have...?" 

Courtesy of my apartment

...So that happened.

Being the regular Sherlock I am, I pieced together the clues: 

1. My roommate having a cough for months that wouldn't go away, but magically did when he stayed with his fiancee 

2. My heightened allergies that seemed to rocket to crazy, cannot-seem-to-function levels when I stayed at the apartment for prolonged periods of time 

3. The musty smell of the apartment 

(...And finding mold in a few places. That helped my sleuthing efforts, too, ya know.)

*24-hours of not being in my apartment.

More on that story, as it develops. (The story, not the mold.)The end of the week was a bit of catch-up to get everything back on track. Which brings us to...

War!

What is it good for? ...cards.

The next game we built was the card game War. ...Now, before you think to yourself, "That can't be that hard", I have two things to remind you of:

1. I've literally been programming for a week and a half at this point. 

2. Take a moment to remind yourself how war is played. 

Now that you've reminded yourself, for anyone reading this who may know how to program - think about how the hell you would need to write the code so it properly handles the situation of two cards matching, laying out the 3 cards, then comparing the next in a 'war' situation. ...it's a -war- in and of itself to code that. I didn't venture into that, as Chris mentioned he accidentally omitted this notion for the first cohort and, as a result, they accidentally got "Super-Nightmare Mode" for their "Normal Mode".

Blackjack

After figuring out the makings of the card and deck class files, calling on those, and getting a better grip on how to properly use self., blackjack was MUCH easier than War. 

I played a bit of Blackjack when I had my landscape architecture internship in Las Vegas a few years ago, and I found myself having a lot of fun building this program. I successfully managed to catch up with the coursework this weekend, and complete blackjack on 'Hard Mode', just in time to get to work at HopCat on Sunday.

Overall

Still optimistic. Still excited. 

I'm looking forward to this coming week - we'll be learning HTML and CSS, with how they are utilized by Ruby. I've heard both encouraging and preparative stories for how this coming week may go. I'm hoping my graphic side will lend itself well for the coming assignments.

ONWARD!

And thanks for reading

Week 1 Recap

1 Down, 13 to go

Let's do this.

The first week of Iron Yard is completed. 

It's already been full of adventures. For those of you who know me well, you know: I don't sports. But let's enjoy the play-by-play of some of the bigger highlights for my week.

Monday

The subject of my first post

Wednesday

Mid-week, I'd moved to: 

1. Waking up on the second day to realize I did not submit my homework. 

2. Freaking out about the lack of submittal. 

3. Realizing Chris had sent a message to us, and submitted it right then. 

4. Reviving myself from a minor heart-attack 

I'm so set on doing my best in this course and getting the most out of every bit of knowledge I can, that my biggest fear is waking up late or forgetting to turn in my homework due to working late the night before.

Friday

By that morning...well. It's official. I was coding in my sleep the night before.

Coursework

The coursework is outlined in a way that could be perceived as 'geeky'. I have two responses for that. 

1. Yeah. And? (I'm learning coding for goodness sake. Of course it's geeky. I'm more than OK with this.) 

2. I actually find it WAY easier to push myself.

How is the coursework outlined, you ask? The main homework goals - i.e. the goals for the assignment that are required to understand the content - are listed as "Normal mode". Extra work beyond this is listed as "Hard mode". Work that requires additional research on your own and will take quite a bit of struggle to accomplish is listed as "Nightmare mode". 

...I don't know about you, but if every assignment in school was listed this way throughout my life, I'd be viewing every assignment as:

It may seem silly, but I think it's genius. I mean, c'mon! Who doesn't want to say they beat their homework on "Nightmare mode"?!

This also pairs perfectly with the mindset that is at the core of Iron Yard. To truly succeed in this line of work (or any, really) you need to have a growth mindset. If you have the time, definitely read the article for that link. I'm blessed to have already been leaning towards this type of thinking as a result of my time in the landscape architecture dept. at Ball State, but I don't think I had truly thought about it as a complete mindset. Reading through the research behind it was very eye-opening and brought a fair amount of self-reflection and (already some) personal growth.

Week one coursework covered:

If/else statements

lipsum generators

Arrays and hashes

Utilizing classes and methods

Utilizing CSV files

Manipulation & integration of the above

Troubleshooting

Dealing with your frustration

Enjoying the small successes

Realizing the small successes to frustration ratio might be 1:372

Frustration

Throughout the week, I've learned a few things - both about the work and myself. 

The work can be infuriating at times - as computers are dumb. They're only going to do what you tell them, and they're only going to do EXACTLY what you tell them. One missing character or missed keystroke, and it all goes to hell in a hand basket.

And things have done so. A lot. Chris jokes that coding is mostly about generating error messages and interpreting what the hell happened.

For me: I'm well aware that I can fall into a trap of getting so frustrated with something that I need to just walk away for a minute. I think everyone gets that way. But there was quite a bit of extra pressure on me this week, as I knew I only had until the end of class time to complete the assignment, as I was working nearly every day after class, and I knew I wouldn't be able to process this stuff at 12:30 at night.

There were many times I was ready for the image above to be a part of downtown Indy. Luckily, I'm not quite ready to do this with my new Macbook Pro that cost me an arm and a leg. (Imagine doing this work one handed, in a wheelchair - which you totally could, I suppose.)

My frustration did teach me to be pretty resourceful with getting answers in an efficient manner.

...but that brings up an excellent point...

Work

Meaning not Iron Yard coursework

I'm currently working at HopCat in Broad Ripple while taking my course with Iron Yard. Through college I worked at a brewhouse in town for four years, managing by the end of my stint. I'm told no one (that Chris knows of) has managed to have a job for the entire duration of the course AND graduate from the program. I've been told one or the other is ended. ...having worked 40+ hours a week at various times while getting my degree, I know it can be done. Is it fun? No. Will I have a life? No. Do I need to be HIGHLY conscious of my time? Yes.

For the first week of Iron Yard, I was finishing my training (as I had just started - a way to pay the bills), and I ended the week with 30 hours clocked.

Overall

I'm excited. I'm pumped. I'm tired as hell! 

But you know when you're so excited about something that you don't really mind how tired you are? That's where I'm at. (We'll talk around week 8 and see how I feel then...) 

I'm also excited to get into week two, as we're going to be building text-based games! As someone who remembers playing versions of these - This. is. so. cool!

I know it's light years of difference, but I'm telling myself these are the stepping stones that lead to what game designers and developers do when creating the next PS4 or Xbox game. (Which would be one of the best jobs I can imagine.)

ONWARD!

The Design Brain in a Technical World

Coding Jargon.

As briefly outlined in my 'about me' section: I'm new to coding. 

As I'm learn the lingo to use, I'm finding it hard not to let the design-side of my brain run rampant with some of these terms. After all, I spent 5 years in design studios learning how to make myself look at new ways of solving problems and coming up with creative solutions in design. Due to this, however, there have been a number of moments in class where I've had to stifle my laughter.

For Example:

On the first day, we were learning about creating "if/else" statements. Basically, if this is true, do the coding that follows. In the event the if statement is not true, you move on to a different option. Any listed possible options that are not the final option are called elsif, short for "or else if". Say "elsif" out loud. My brain (in a rather 'Family Guy'-esque manner) jumped to this:

"Elsif? Do you wanna build some codiiiiiing?"

While working with hashes...

When you are stating the key pair correlation in a hash, you use the characters =>. This is referred to as a "hash rocket".

(This is what I instantly pictured.)

Working with arrays

An array is simply a sequence of information. If I wanted an array of the numbers 1 through 5, it would look like [1,2,3,4,5]. ...which got me thinking...

"Thar be the "Scourge of the Coding Seas", Arrrr."

"Camel Case"

Despite the name, "Camel Case" is WhenYouTypeLikeThis. ...think "humps on a camel" for capitalizing the letters in the string you're typing.

Nothing to do with a place to keep your cigarettes...

Ruby in general

Chris keeps reiterating to us the ease of using Ruby. In many cases, Ruby has the ability to read what you're giving it, and disregard the minor things that may be needed in other programming languages. The most common phrase we keep hearing from Chris: 

Though I'm fully aware Chris was making this reference, it still makes me laugh.

Ultimately

I'm learning to get these terms into my vocabulary. Sure, it may be a bit unique, but I'm sure as hell getting a kick out of it. I plan on keeping track of these mis-haps of coding jargon and occasionally sharing. Until then, enjoy the spoils of my mind running with things it probably shouldn't.

"The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible."-David Mackenzie Ogilvy

First Day of School

Welcome to the Iron Yard

The first week of class. First day of school since graduating from Ball State. I was eager and excited to start to learn coding. Danny (my friend who told be about Iron Yard and helped me to get in touch with the program) had warned me on how intense the work was, and how much time and effort it would take. But everything I had learned and looked into for this made me want to get into it more and more. I was holding out for those first words on the first day for the course! They're always so inspiring and motivating! They set the tone for the course!

"...This will not be easy" is not typically something people enjoy hearing from a teacher... Especially when it seems to be echoed by the staff and any recent graduates of the program you meet. It was safe to say, any and all preparation I had for the course in terms of its intensity was now validated.

Even still, I was determined to give it everything. After all, the more I sweat now, the easier it will be in the real situation. (Some real-life Richard Marcinko for ya.)

For the first day, I was glad to have done the pre-work for Ruby. The homework focused on 'if, elsif, else' statements, which was easy enough, I felt. And the class is set up for you to push your limits and really go for it. I was dead-set on pushing as far as I could take this...until I decided to push for user input, prompting to keep the user from having any answer that wouldn't prompt a response, and asking for new input. At one point, I literally stopped, looked at what I had on screen, and said to myself, "...what have I done...?" 

(If you'd like to see the extent of my nesting issues)

Lesson 1: don't create your own downfall.

I was happy to find that whereas it may have become a bit of a monster, my efforts seemed to be in the right place. Chris (the instructor) informed me I will likely be a fan of next week, when we actually get into user input.

All in all, nothing says "first day of school" like having your push for success blow up in your face, but then finding out it's not as bad as you thought. Right?