Category Archives: Education

Angela, Education

Monday Ramblings

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I sent Angie 400.00 last Saturday for Fathers day, cable/internet, gas money and any other things she might need/want like smokes. What did she do? She spent the whole wad on baby stuff. I told her what the money was for and she wined about me not tell her that and she is the only one that gives a shit about the baby etc.. Wednesday she sends me a copy of her internet/cable bill which is fine but due that day. I asked her when did that come and her response was I don’t know, I just checked my mail because you said something about it. I used to be like that about my bills quite a few years ago and have now build a pretty good credit rating now. I told her just because you have money does not mean you have to spend it (that pissed her off).

Angie sent me a picture of her new grand daughter, what a cutie but then went on the say she could not be there when she was born because I was bitching about her spending money and she didn’t have the gas money to get there. I get where she is coming from because I did bitch about the spending a little but also apologized for not being to fair to her because of her situation and I’ll quit bitching, let her finish up the six months and go from there but I’ll still get blamed for her not being at the baby’s birth for the rest of our lives together.

I’m going through one of Udemy’s classes on Intermediate CSharp with Mosh to brush up on some things that have turned a little rusty. Having discovered this when finishing up the Python course and trying to convert the last two lessons into CSharp. I plain forgot how to do some things.

I have two classes purchased, one is a massive VBA course and the other a massive Python course. I think with these languages under my belt (CSharp, VBA and Python) I will have a very well rounded coding vocabulary.

Education, Udemy

Another Udemy Class Complete

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I finished the Python Bible class from Udemy this last week and now am back onto a VBA class. This will be a little difficult because the instructor is very hard to understand. Each of the lectures seem to be around 12 minutes long and there are over 200 of them but the report automation portion I am really looking forward to.

I have found a new favorite company which will challenge my exercise and diet. The company is Grubhub. They pick up and deliver food to your doorstep from many restaurants that don’t normally deliver like one of my favorites, Red Robin and I took advantage of it this last weekend. I also tried a new Chinese delivery and a restaurant I have always wanted to try, On the Border. The Chinese restaurant was pretty dang good and I got 3 10.00 coupons from them but On the Border wasn’t as good as I thought (the chips and dip were though). This can really destroy my diet if I don’t watch out though. One new restaurant per weekend, I think that will work.

Angie is doing good but being really quiet right now which I like. She is cheaper that way 🙂

Blender, Education, Michael Miles, Peloton, Udemy, Writing

And the new year starts

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What is up for this new year.

Number one on the list has to be lose the weight I gained which is to say get in shape and continue to do so as I was when I was in physical therapy after my heart attach. To do this I order a Peloton spin bike at 2400.00 this is an expensive gift to myself but on that I will enjoy. I enjoyed the stationary bike at therapy and have been complaining none of the weight rooms I have at the apartment or the hotel had them.

Number two will be the Project Management Professional certificate my boss mentioned late last year. If he meant it great I’ll do It as I have signed up for a course at Udemy for the same. If now I’ll still take the Udemy course then practice tests, then the real deal.

Number three is the book… I’m not sure of that direction as it has changed very much over the last year but I’ll set my direction and move forward.

Last but not least is the continued pursuit of Blender modeling, Unity Game creating and C#/Python programing. All of these last items I enjoy very much but have limited time to practice.

I think all of these can be accomplished this year with the first one a must if I want to go back to Seattle next Christmas.

Education

Educational Frustration

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I found this frustration in High school on into College as well. This frustration would be having to read up on topics I already know quite well. It makes the education process very boring. Case in point; I’m reading the book “ASP.NET 4.5.1 in C# and VB”, I am at “Chapter 5: Programming Your ASP.NET Web Pages” section “Data Types and Variables”. I am quite familiar with this topic and am not too keen on reading about the topic all over again. My quandary would be, if I skipped the sections I may be bored with will I miss something? I don’t know so I then go ahead and read the section boring the heck out of myself and not really absorbing the information like I should. This usually results in missing items they may have snuck in there and I don’t notice.

By the way this is a very good book and highly recommend it. It may say you can’t use Visual Studio Community 2015 with this I am not having any problems.

Education

It is a juggling game

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Between writing, CSharp, Excel and Access VBA it has become a juggling game of which to work on when.

I start getting into and having progress on my book and my job raises it’s ugly head and I start working in excel and access full throttle. At the same time I keep thinking of the progress Blender has made and I have completely missed out on the as well as Unity. What I may end up doing is cutting into my sleep time during the week by a couple of hours and write during that time, devoting my daytime at work to excel and access. Work is where I use those programs the most, I would say about 95 percent of the time they are used at and for work. The weekends will then be dedicated to Blender and Unity.

More random words

Dead, Museum, Disorder, Journalist, Wars.

The journalist, while taking the day out for a trip to the World War museum in the city was taken in by the art of the two wars as portrayed in pictures. He reflects on the disorders caused by different conflicts around the world now and wonders how the dead really dealt with them. PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) being just one and the many other so called disorders created by the gulf wars. Gulf war syndrome, what a joke, are the solders of today seemingly wimps compared the soldiers of yesterday?

(Note, these are random thoughts using the random words placed in front of my and do not reflect my opinion on way or another)

Education, Udemy, Visual Studio

Not enough time in the day

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After spending all week working with CSharp/Visual Studio and Git, taking copious notes for inclusion into my book I have found CSharp programming wonderfully addictive. At the same time using Visual Studio to create the simplest of programs seems to give much more satisfaction than it did when I was in high school.

The problem now is I have so many irons in the fire and I want to do them all. I have 25 lessons left in the latest CSharp course which is helping immensely with my investigation for my book. This weekend I also signed up for another 20 hour course with the same instructor as I like his style very much.

I want to keep working on my book, work through a course for the Arduino I purchased … argh … there is not enough time in the day for all of this.

Education, Scrivener

It’s book time

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Its seems strange how as I start to organize my thoughts on writing this book I have been talking about, useful blog posts and tools start showing up out of the blue. For no reason other than I had not perused the site in a couple of months I logged into CR4. The first article I started reading lead me to a piece of software specifically designed for writing and looks like a great program for its stated function. I am one that always prefers to use  software for their intended function therefore you will never see me use Excel for any kind of data access or flow charts like everyone where I work. I will use Access and Viso for those functions and Excel for spreadsheet calculations and have become quite a proficient user of all three.

Without further ado I give you Scrivener. At first glance it looks to be another word processing program but after a couple hours of YouTube videos describing the various features such as organizing your chapters and research items. The ease with which you can rearrange your content which is nothing like a cut and paste in a Word document I find quite appealing. As I start creating the content for my book I will continue to update you with the various features I discover within this software and at 40.00 I will definitely be using this for much longer than the 30 day trial period. Actually my trial period finished last night 🙂 after watching those great videos. I love getting other users opinions of software or items I am thinking of purchasing outside of the comments reviewers leave on the product websites. I believe those as much as I believe the commercials that state, “These are not actors but real people…” yeah right.

Another item of note, I completed my taxes for 2015, yes I am getting a refund from my Federal but alas I must pay the state of Oklahoma. Another check mark on my todo list for the day.

CGcookie, Education, Lynda.com, Udemy

Internet Education Sites

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I received an offer for 30 days free for Lynda.com. If you have not heard of it this site is filled with informational videos, tutorials etc. on a very large number of topics. I elected to try it out and added training videos for Unity3D, Adobe After Effects, Blender, Visual Studio and C# programming along with others I can’t think of right now. The thirty days has come and gone and I’ll tell you, the quality of the tutorials and exercise files is quite good and I signed up for a monthly membership. I want to at least get through the play lists I have set up and then make up my mind on how much longer I will continue the monthly membership. I have quite a few to go but I have completed the following all of which were very good.

Up and Running with C#
C# Essential Training
Foundation of Programming Fundamentals
Visual Studio 2012 Essential Training
Visual Studio 2013 for Windows Store Developers
Windows 10 New Features
Rigging a Human Character in Blender

I also signed up for Udemy.com which is much the same as Lynda.com. The membership to this site is free and you pay for the content you want as you go and have unlimited access to the material. Now the content on their website is quite expensive with most of the ones I am interested in running around 99.00 USD each. I have seen them as low as 29.00USD and has high as 199.00USD but what attracted me to the site was a statement I read that said most of the courses are less expensive if you purchase them through the app rather than the website. This I found was exactly correct as the courses I wanted ran about 99.00USD and the app had them for sale for 9.99USD so I signed up.

Another site I frequent is CGCookie.com. This site has monthly, quarterly and annual membership plans for their content as well as a free membership allowing access to many free learning opportunities released throughout the year. I have been a paying member for the last few years and even though the rates go up once in a while the price is well worth the content, both video and course file downloads.

I highly recommend all of these quality learning sites.

I never regret signing up and paying for any opportunity to learn something new or expand on any knowledge I currently have.