• Build to Last

“Bodge” is British slang best defined (by me) as, “to throw together hastily without worrying about long term consequences. Append “-ed” to the word and you’ve officially described every line of code I’ve ever written. Every project, assignment, or programming challenge I’ve ever encountered was solved by bodging together whatever I could throw at a problem and make stick. It worked fine. Assignments only had to run once to get an “A”. Most personal projects were similar “One and Done” solutions. Even websites built for clients while freelancing were out of my hands once I got paid. Only now, am I truly seeing the benefit of writing clean, modular, well-documented code.

• Increased Confidence

Today I was reminded of a project that I’ve attempted in the past. Once, I was browsing Reddit, as I do, and stumbled upon a Python script that someone wrote. The script downloaded the top 10 images on /r/earthporn and overlayed those images with the top 10 quoted from /r/Shower then uploads them to a Flikr album. The result is a stunning picture of a mountain, sunset, or ocean with a laughable quote like “They need to make phones fully waterproof so we can start pushing people into pools again”. I had wanted to push these images to Google Photos so I could view them from my Chromecast on a continuous slideshow. I had given up in frustration months ago. Today, I realized that I could do it. After the work with API’s and general server scripting, I had the confidence to try again. Now I just need the free time.

• Strategic Time Use

When nearly 12 hours of your day is taken by work, food preparation, and travel, you really prioritize what to do with your free time. For me, I get great value from skateboarding the city after work. It provides exercise, excitement, and entertainment while also exploring the city in the coolest way possible. Picking up fist-bumps from strangers as I push around the block in leather boots, rolled up jeans, and a button up shirt in 27-degree sunshine. Besides this guilty pleasure, I make a priority of writing daily. I do some freelance work writing for company blogs to earn some extra dough.

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