Today marks the 4 year anniversary of my new career path. I can’t believe it’s been 4 years already. I went from having a hobby of working on websites (and teaching myself) to working on them for a living. I’ve learned a lot in these past 4 years, and I’m still learning.

The last 4 years haven’t all been peachy. Back in September 2006 I was laid off. It wasn’t because of my work. It was a situation the company encountered. They basically laid off all but about 5 people, and they weren’t guaranteed a position for very much longer. But then about a month later, they offered me my position back. I was the only one they brought back. I’ve basically been with them ever since.

I say “basically” because the company no longer exists. The client that we had been working with hired myself and my boss at the beginning of this year. So I’m still doing the same thing, but my paychecks come from someone else now. And I’ve been working from home since the start of the year.

I definitely love what I do … making ideas come to life online. I do have my bad days, but I think that’s mainly because I work at home. I’m the kind of person who needs to get out of my apartment from time to time, so working from home makes me go batty some times. That’s why I wish there was a coworking location here. Maybe when I win the lottery I’ll set one up. I can dream, can’t I? LOL

While I do love what I’m doing, I’m starting to get more interested in other aspects of the web … namely social media. That’s kind of ironic since I am definitely NOT a social person. I’m the girl who sits in the corner watching people have fun. But I need to change that.

I have no immediate plan to change my career plan yet again. I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing. But I think that in my spare time I might start looking into the whole social media field. It might turn out that it’s not for me. But it doesn’t hurt to look into it. I’m at a point in my life where I feel like I need to get more involved with things. I’m not getting any younger. LOL I think that would help with the working from home thing and feeling like I’m trapped in my apartment.

Where will I be 4 years from today? Who knows. I would like to think that I will still be involved in some aspect of web programming. Maybe even in some other aspect of the web. But since I don’t have a crystal ball and since I can’t see the future, I have no idea where I will actually be. I just hope that wherever I am and whatever I’m doing, I’m happy. That’s all I want. To be happy.

Way back when I was still in high school (it seems like a lifetime ago), I never would have thought I’d be where I am today. I had it in my head all through high school (I think I was bit by the bug around 6th or 7th grade) that I was going to have a job in a weather related field. I loved storms, and was just generally interested in the weather.

I did end up following that path. I went to the University of North Dakota to pursue a degree in Meteorology. I spent 4 years there and ended up with a B.S. in Meteorological Studies (That was 10 years ago this May. Wow does time fly). A couple summers before I graduated, I worked on a weather modification project in western North Dakota. I loved that. I was genuinely interested in the field. I find it amazing that you can reduce the size of hail or make it rain. After college, I got a job as a meteorologist at a company in the field of weather modification. They had projects all around the world, not just in the US. I was there for over 4 years.

That job is what started my migration away from the weather related career path. I was there for over 4 years, but basically was only an office assistant. I did get to go out in the field once (to Oklahoma). But there wasn’t any weather during the week that I was there. So my job mainly entailed gathering paperwork from the field projects, compiling reports, generating reports, logging data … that kind of stuff. Nothing dealing with the weather.

But that job did get me started on my current career path. While I was there, I took over maintenance and development on the company’s website. I did have a couple computer classes in college … 2 in C programming and 1 in computer concepts in meteorology. It was the computer concepts class that I got my first taste of web design/programming. We had to do all of our reports as a website. But other than that, I’ve had no formal education/training in web design/programming. Everything that I know is stuff that I’ve taught myself through trial and error. Good thing I’m a quick learner.

So working on that company’s website is what started pulling me into the world wide web (so to speak ). I delved deeper by developing websites for myself and for a local country band that I know. I ended up registering a domain name and having several subdomains.

That brings me back to today. I have been working as a web programmer for almost 4 years now (the end of June brings me to the 4 year mark). I’ve been with the same company (sort of) all that time. I say “sort of” because at the beginning of this year, that company ceased to exist, and the 2 of us left are now working for the client we had been working. So I’ve been working on the same websites all that time (Well, almost all that time. I started on small projects/updates for the first couple months.).

In these past 4 years, I’ve expanded on my php programming skills and learned mssql. I had only worked with MySQL before that time. And this week I started working on creating my first web service. We’re integrating our shopping cart with Google Checkout, and I get to do the development. I’m learning more and more with every new project we embark on. This web service development is allowing me to learn to work with DOM objects and create/parse XML. This is stuff that I can use on my own websites too. I just need to come up with some good ideas.

While I never imagined I’d be where I am today, I am happy. I really enjoy web development. And the more time I spend on it, the better I get at it. Now, don’t get me wrong, I still am intrigued by the weather … especially severe storms. One of my dream vacations would be to go on a storm chasing tour. But as for a career … it just wasn’t meant to be.

Where will I be 10 years from now? Who knows. But I’m hoping it will be in a career that has something to do with web programming.

A while back, I decided to join Twitter. Now that I have, I’m completely hooked. I even downloaded Twhirl after Mace suggested I use a Twitter client and after seeing Christine posting from it. I’ve been using it ever since. Makes it much easier to keep up with the new ‘tweets’.

I’ve been starting to follow more and more people. It makes it easier to follow conversations when they’re not one sided … LOL. And it jut so happens that most of the people I follow live in Houston. It’s all Christine’s fault. I started following her and Mace and started adding people she follows. Since she lives in Houston, she’s bound to follow people from there. Following their conversations makes me wish it was more techie up here. I know that there are geeks up here, but I just don’t know where to find them. I’ve done some searching from time to time for blogs from the area. But the only one I know of at this point is Mace. Maybe he knows of more. Or maybe I just need to get out of my apartment and start hanging out at coffee shops. LOL

But even if there a lot of geeks up here, I don’t think they’re as social as they are down in Houston. I was really jealous reading about the Twitter meetup they were having this past weekend. I would love to go to something like that. To meet people who blog and have Twitter accounts and are geeky like me. But until I find people like that up here, I’m living vicariously through them.

What really makes me jealous about following all these Houston Twitterers (is that a word? LOL) is their talk of coworking. OMG … I would love to be able to do that. While I don’t work for myself, I do work from home. I could really work anywhere that had wifi (I’d need a power source too because I have an external hard drive with my work laptop that would need to be plugged in). Being able to do that would solve my space issue and it would give me some much needed social contact. I did find out that there are people doing the coworking thing in Minneapolis, but that’s too far away for me. Maybe I should try to get something like that going up here. But I don’t know if there are others who would be interested in it. And I’m not the kind of person who would be good at getting it going. I’m too much of a follower.

I know … I sound like I hate living up here. Well … only during the winter. Other than that, it’s not a bad place. That’s why I still live here (that and ‘cuz my family and friends are here). But I do wish I knew more techy/geeky people. I wish I new the people whose blogs and Twitter feeds I read. So … if you live up around here (the Fargo, ND area) and you happen to be reading this and have a blog or Twitter feed, leave a comment with a link to it.

Now I have to go. It’s almost time for General Hospital (I love having SoapNet on digital cable …

At the beginning of the year, I started working from home. From day one I’ve known that my apartment isn’t big enough. It was fine when I left to go to work. But now that I work from home … and now that I have my laptop … it’s just not big enough. I do have a desk. It used to work out just fine. But that was back when all I had was my desktop. Now I have my desktop, my work laptop 17 inch), and my personal laptop (15.4 inch). I’m using the monitor and mouse and keyboard for the desktop with my work laptop (now that I FINALLY have my KVM switch). That setup works just fine. I could use just a touch more space for papers and such, but all in all, it’s fine. But that leaves my lappy floating around the living room. I had it on the coffee table for a while. But it’s not the best spot for it. I moved it to the kitchen table this weekend. It works pretty good there … especially since I generally don’t eat at the table. I did for a while, but I usually end up on the couch, using the coffee table. The only problem with having the lappy on the table is that the power cord is draped across the room from my desk to the table. Granted, my apartment isn’t that big and it’s not that far from the desk to the table. But still. If I’m not paying attention and I’m dragging my feet … not gonna be good for the lappy.

What I really wish I had was a separate room to set up as an office. If I had a 2 bedroom apartment, that would be perfect (even better if I had a house … but that’s not gonna happen for at least a couple years … although, it is a goal I’m starting to save up for). I could probably afford it too, as long as I didn’t look at the new buildings that have popped up on the south end of town. But I really like the location that I’m at now. Nice and close to the grocery store and gas station. Only a couple blocks south of 13th Ave and I-29. A really good location. I did look at the property management’s website to see if there were any open 2 bedroom apartment in this building on the one across the way, but nothing. So it looks like I’m stuck here for a while longer … either until I have enough saved up to start house hunting or until I go completely bonkers from being stuck in a 1 bedroom apartment nite and day … LOL. Hopefully it won’t come to that.

The only real option I have left is to get a bigger desk. But I can’t go all crazy on that. I do have a limited amount of space. I looked at some desks at Office Max this weekend when I went in to look for a new keyboard. I found a couple that I liked. Both are corner desks. Currently, my desk isn’t in a corner. And putting in a corner would mean that I would have to move the kitchen table, and the table doesn’t work anywhere other than where it currently is (in the corner). But the one I am seriously considering would work where my desk currently is. It wouldn’t stick out too much. It’s the Vantage Collection Corner Desk. And apparently it’s one of the ones on sale this week …

Click to enlarge

Now that I know it’s on sale (hopefully it’s on sale at the store and not just online), I need to seriously consider if I want to get it or not. I just don’t know. I don’t wanna settle. But I’m not sure how long I can handle my current setup. Good thing I still have most of my tax refund left.

I survived my week in charge of the websites at work (3 websites open to the public and 1 back-end admin website). I still need to keep an eye on the error log this weekend since Justin’s not back from vacation yet. But at least I don’t have to do any more publishing.

The week went okay. There were no major blow ups. The biggest issue I had was dealing with all of the emails with requests for changes from my boss and prioritizing them. And I thought I was gonna run out of tasks this week. Hah! I had so many requests from my boss that I didn’t even touch the tasks that Justin gave me before he left.

I think I did okay. Of the things that my boss sent me, I think I got most of them taken care of. There were a couple larger ones that I didn’t do, but that was because I was leaving them until last. I wanted to get the small ones done and live first. And the changes I was making was all within the same system, so 2 different sets of changes affected the same files. I didn’t want to get one task done and wait on approval and start a second and get approval on that before the first because I couldn’t publish it until the first got approved. That’s why I did the small stuff first.

I definitely got my fill of publishing. When it’s my own websites, I really don’t care. They’re just my sites, and I don’t think I have that many visitors anyways. But the work websites … that’s nerve wracking. I didn’t want to make a change and publish it only to have it take down the websites. That would not be good. But that didn’t happen. All was fine.

I hope I lived up to my supervisor’s (Justin) expectations. He had enough confidence in me to leave me in charge and go on vacation for a week … and to Mexico no less. I think he had more confidence in me than I did … LOL.

I’m just glad it’s over. I don’t know how Justin manages to juggle everything. A week of doing that was more than enough for me. I don’t wanna deal with that pressure anymore. Small shots is fine, but that’s it. Now I’m gonna relax this weekend and try not to look at the error log every 10 minutes. Every couple of hours should be fine.

panic. Or at least this one does … LOL.

The web department for my new employer consists of 2 people … me and Justin (my former boss and now supervisor). Justin out on vacation all week. That means that I’m in charge of the websites. If something blows up … I’ve gotta fix it.

Today has gone okay so far. Nothing has blown up (yet). But I’ve had to sort though a bunch of requests/fixes from my boss on various things. Most have all been with one aspect of the website. And most have been small changes. But there are a bunch. I feel like I’ve got ADD. Trying to sort through things and prioritize and get them done. I’m not sure how Justin does that and still is able to answer my questions and get stuff of his own done.

I’m putting a lot of pressure on myself this week. I CAN’T mess up. The fact that Justin felt that I could handle things while he was gone for a week does feel good … that he trusts me like that. But that means pressure to not screw up … to fix issues as quickly as humanly possible. I feel like I have to prove myself though. That I can handle things. I feel like if I can’t, there’s no reason to keep me on.

I’m trying not to freak out. I’m taking things one at a time … doing the little things and getting them published. Working on the urgent and ASAP items before the other items. I’m also keeping an eye on the server error log to catch any issues as they crop up. So I do have a handle on things … or at least so far I do.

But I’ve only put 4 hours behind me. There’s still the rest of the week to live through. I know … I just know that something is gonna go wrong. And when it does, I’m gonna freak. I’m gonna screw up. I’m gonna lose my job. Boy … aren’t I the eternal optimist … LOL. Hopefully that is all just nerves, and everything will work out okay. But that remains to be seen. I’m gonna be on pins and needles all week. Hopefully I’ll still be around at the end of it …

I set up my retirement plan with my new employer today. It’s a Simple IRA rather than a 401K. I still know nothing about those things. I just went with the suggestions the guy gave me.

It’s with Edward Jones. I’m putting 3% (of each paycheck) toward it and my employer matched up to 3%. That money is going into what they call “American Funds B shares”. There are 3 funds that the money will be going in to:
35% into Capital World Growth and Income Fund
35% into Fundamental Investors
30% into Capital Income Builders

I have ABSOLUTELY no idea what any of that means. But that’s what the guy suggested. I’m hoping he’s being straight with me and suggesting the best options. I guess I should do some research on things so that I’m more knowledgeable about things. I can make changes at any time. I’ll just have to keep an eye on things to see how it goes. I’ll be getting monthly statements on it.

Is there anyone out there who knows anything about this sort of thing? If so, can you point me toward some online resources so I can try to get to know what I’m doing? I just hope I’ll have some money somewhere to use once I get to retirement age. I did have some money in a 401K with a former employer, but I had to cash that out after they “let me go” (and waited a month to tell me that they “eliminated the position”) … I had bills to pay. Hopefully that will NEVER happen again, and the money will still be around when I get old. LOL

Working from home went pretty well today. But I have come to the realization that I need a bigger desk or a second desk. The problem is that I don’t really have the space for a bigger desk let alone another desk … unless I get rid of my kitchen table. I have my desktop and laptop on my desk and used the kitchen table today for my work laptop. That worked well except for the fact that I don’t have room to put stuff so I can take notes. I might look around and see what I can find, but I’ll just have to make due for now.

As for my paycheck … Justin gave me one yesterday when we were in Jamestown … just in case the one Kelly mailed didn’t show up. Turns out it did show up. She mailed it Friday but it wasn’t postmarked ’til Monday. And since Tuesday was a holiday, I didn’t get it ’til yesterday. Damn postal service. Talk about stressing me out for bills. But all is well now.

Other than that … it’s the same old same old with me. Not really don’t anything other than working. I am loving the laptop though. I still have a few more things to put on it. I think I’ll work on removing unneeded programs from my desktop this weekend to free up space. Then I’ll start ripping more of my CDs. I’d like to get as much of my music on there as possible. And since I got my network all hooked up between my desktop and my laptop, I can listen to my music on the lappy. That’ll be nice in the summer when I’m out on my balcony playing with the lappy.

I’d better go fill out some of the paperwork I have for the new job so I can send it in to them. Don’t want any delays in getting on the insurance plan. It’s bad enough that I’ve got to wait 60 days … especially since my eye drops are about $120 per refill. I think I’ve got enough to last me ’til the new plan kicks in though. And I’ll find out on Saturday if they’re actually doing any good … I’ve got my follow up appointment. And I should be able to get a new pair of glasses too. Since I haven’t been able to wear my contacts in ages, I might actually spurge a little and actually get a nice pair instead of a cheap pair.

I’ll get pics of the lappy up sometime soon too … hopefully this weekend.

I should be in a good mood right now … I have my new laptop to get set up. But I’m not happy. In fact, I’m fuckin’ pissed. Today is supposed to be payday for me. But since I’m working at home, they mailed my check. Kelly said she mailed in on Friday. That means I should have gotten it on Saturday or today at the latest. Well … I went and got my mail about 10 minutes ago … no paycheck. What the hell do I do now? I have rent to pay. And other bills due soon as well. And now I won’t get my check in the bank until after 5pm on Wednesday since there’s no mail tomorrow. That means my money won’t be available until Thursday. If that check doesn’t show up on Wednesday, I’m really fuckin’ screwed.

So today went from a high to rock bottom. Dammit. Why can’t anything go my way?

Starting tomorrow, I’m going to have a really short commute … from the couch to the computer … LOL. I’m starting to work from home. So I’ll get to sleep in in the morning. Not sure when I’ll get up … probably 7am. I’ll still take a shower ‘cuz I’ll feel icky if I don’t. But I may just put my pj pants back on … :G-razz3:

I was able to get my work laptop all set up on my wireless network. I’m having an issue with outgoing email though. The outgoing mail server was set up to use port 25 at work. I have my personal email set up using port 26. Neither port works on the laptop for the work email server. But my personal email one does work, so I set that up for now. Hopefully Justin will have some time tomorrow afternoon to help me troubleshoot.

My biggest issue right now is figuring out how to set things up. I’ll either use my computer desk or my kitchen table … probably the desk to start with to see how that goes. I’m not sure if I’m going to hook my monitor up to the laptop or not. I’m used to using a single screen, but it would be nice to have 2 for work purposes. I’ll have to see how it goes tomorrow. I might just have to hook up a keyboard to it though. It’s hard getting used to the keyboard on the laptop. I think it’s maybe because it’s flat and not at an angle.

I’d better get back to figuring out what I’m doing with my office space. I keep getting distracted by General Hospital though.