My Portfolio is now available and mundane meanderings

Life has been a whirlwind in many directions as of late. I’m glad I’m a fairly grounded person, because if not, I can’t imagine I wouldn’t fall off this roller-coaster. I can’t say I have many major complaints, however.

I decided to work on my portfolio yesterday, which you can view in its full glory. There are a few other sites I want to add that were fairly complex design, but am thinking through whether that would be a detriment.

I’ve really wanted to get into some mobile development on the side, just learn the ins and outs of it across various platforms and maybe even look into app development at some point.

I’d also like to get to a point of taking classes of some sort to get more involved with programming javascript/jQuery, php, and possibly AJAX. I think they would be extremely beneficial, so I’m at least research avenues to make this possible right now.

I’m making a massive to-do list of stuff I want to knock out and just haven’t had the motivation to do yet and just tackling one at a time until it’s gone. Hoping to stir up a bees nest there.

I decided on a whim to go on a hay ride today in Orrtanna to clear my head and do some soul searching. I think I have a game plan moving forward, and while it’s going to take an insane amount of work and dedication on my part, that’s what I’m best at right?

My view today:

Hayride

I also have not done a “5-year” goal post in a few years, so I think it’s about time to check up on my old ones and make some new ones. Sorta dust off the apathy and pour some motivation onto it.

I have an amazing support system though, some of these people are the foundation in which I bask.

What else is new…dad and I are trying to fill up our wood racks for the winter. We started the woodstove for the first time the other day and I absolutely love the feeling of wood heat seeping into my bones.

As mentioned before, our kitchen oven has gone up and is not fixable (according to our repair dude). I had worked to figure out a plan on how I was going to pay for it by dipping into my christmas fund, but then I got an amazing offer to have one bought for me as a gift for dad and I for the holidays. It arrives Tuesday and is black and swank. I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed baking this last month I’ve been without a stove.

Still, I am always looking for freelance work, so if you know of anyone that needs some HTML mastery done, hit me up.

Getting my foot in the door in another field

Next week I start a tax course to train to be able to do taxes. It runs in the evenings for several weeks, and then maybe by tax time next year, I’ll be doing taxes part-time. Mostly evenings and Saturdays. It doesn’t pay much, but it at least puts my foot in the door for another line of work under my belt. I like having experience in many different fields, and right now I have it in veterinary care, retail, customer service/admin, and web development. All of which I could fall back on should the need arise (web development being the preferred, obviously).

Taxes are sort of an odd way to get into finance, but it’s an easy/cheap start. Right now I wouldn’t want finance to be my main source of income, because it’s simply so volatile. Taxes on the other hand, will always be doing business because everyone has to do them.

Now I just need to work on my web dev training more.

Involved in Bettering the World

In 2007 and 2008 I was involved in working on a project at work called “Scientists Without Borders“.  I’ve been meaning to do a post about it since, but for some reason never did.

It actually felt good to work on this project, despite the pains that come with every project.  I felt like I was somewhat contributing to the less fortunate from my little corner of the world.  Like “Doctors Without Borders“, this site was intended to help spread science and the skills of science teachers and programs to third world countries, or less fortunate countries.  It’s a project started by the New York Academy of Sciences (another site we are in the process of redoing that should launch this year), who is I believe a leader in the Science World on the Webosphere.

Almost all of the html/css you’ll see on the site is mine, but don’t look too closely, because when merging html/css with a .NET framework, it loses a lot of it’s w3 validity luster.

Saturday Job, Next Year

So I talked to my Aunt about working for the tax company she manages, and we’re going to look into that as a possibly second job -next- year. There is a tax course I have to take in order to prepare to answer questions about all sorts of situations regarding taxes, which I will be taking this fall. My cousin Steph is going to take it with me so I’m really looking forward to that.

Anything to diversify my skill-set and get a leg in the “financial bracket” of the work force That’ll put at least 5 different types of jobs under my belt that I have experience with should I ever need to fall back on one.

Now if I can only get into more programming

Possible Saturday Job

I’ve mentioned before that my Aunt works for Jackson Hewitt. She does my taxes every year, and manages three separate Jackson Hewitt offices.

This year she’s pretty short-handed, and I’m thinking of asking if I can help out on Saturdays (and some Sundays, but not every Sunday). This would be a small extra income, and also get me some experience in the tax/financial bracket.

We’ll see what she says anyway. The extra income would be put towards my fathers loan so perhaps we can get the $5k paid off even sooner than September like I originally anticipated

Obviously I couldn’t work during the week, due to my current full-time job during the day, and my personal activities in the evening.