So it’s Friday and I’m done with classes for the week. Let’s catch up with what’s happened so far.
Class Update
We’ve been starting slow with foundational and background information that we will need to move forward. As much as I’m antsy to get eyeball deep, I know this is important information. I also know that many others in the class don’t have my background.
Even though I could argue that I’ve learned this week’s material before, I still found gems every day that I’m going to spend the next few days following up on. It’s one thing to know stuff. It’s another to assimilate it into your brain and muscle memory. One thing I?want?to focus on is integrating keyboard commands into my habits.
To be clear, what we’ve covered so far includes:
- introductions to our classmates
- tour of Flywheel
- overview of the way the Internet works (like networking basics)
- the languages and protocols of the web (especially those we’ll be focusing on)
- apps that we’re going to need (like text editors, FTP and communication apps)
- some command line tools
- joining the class Slack team
- an intro to some of the developer resources on the web
- Sublime Text orientation and setup
Next week we’ll be digging into HTML and CSS, which I’m reasonably comfortable with but I still expect to learn more than a thing or two. We’ll begin coding next week too, so that will be nice. Week 3 is where the topics start to venture into why I’m here. JavaScript/JQuery and PHP/MySQL kick in about then and that’s what I’m REALLY looking forward to.
Living in Omaha
I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m staying at an Entrepreneur House that I found on Airbnb. So I have five roommates that are busy trying to launch businesses. It’s rather cool. They’ve been here a while already and are deep into their program. I’ve met them all, but they come and go all day long and I often have the house to myself.
Having never been to Omaha before, I have NO IDEA where anything is. I don’t know if I’m in a good part of town or bad. I don’t know where groceries, coffee shops, or food joints are. I don’t know how to get from one place to another. Thank god for Lyft.
I had packed some food along (ramen and MREs FTW!) and really needed that the first couple of days as I didn’t leave the house except for class. We had a hiccup on Wednesday because the house leader’s wallet went missing a while back so of course he cancelled his credit cards – which were being used to pay the utility bill. So Wednesday they cut off the gas to the place. Realizing what had happened he immediately went down and corrected the situation. However, it wasn’t until the next morning when I went to take a shower that it was obvious that the gas hadn’t been turned back on. Not being able to cope with essentially no heat, no hot water, and no way to make tea I HAD TO leave the house.
It was a good thing actually. I went and hung out downtown at a coffee shop nearly all day. I’ll likely do that again now that I know where one is. I also got a brief chance to walk around the Old Market area of Omaha, which will require many walk arounds in the upcoming weeks. I managed to find an awesome tattoo joint (Big Brain Productions) and a pizza place (Zio’s Pizza) before heading over to class later in the day. Needless to say, this morning’s hot shower was glorious.
I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do this weekend. There’s a happy hour gathering at the Interface School tonight, so I’ll be at that. The weather looks to improve soon. (It’s been cold and wet since I arrived – even snowed yesterday.) I’m hoping to start walking around to get to know where things are a bit better. I also saw a poster for a powwow over at Creighton University that I might go to on Saturday. One thing I did discover last night on the way home was that there’s a castle (Joslyn Castle) about four blocks away from where I’m staying. That may be the?first direction I head when I go exploring.
So far so good in Omaha. Having fun and looking forward to what’s to come. An undying thank you to everyone who helped me get here.
Sounds interesting. I wasn’t aware that “Entrepreneur Houses” existed, so I’ll have to look into that more. Seems like you’re having a good time. I’m sure the course information will pick up in complexity soon, so all those basics you’re going over now will come in handy. Touring new towns is always a good time. I dig that kind of thing.
Take care,
Jay
There’s actually one in Fargo too (where I’m from) called the “Startup House” and one in Kansas City that I’m aware of too. So like a hipster thing then, yes? 😉
I looked into the Startup House a bit. It seems like a good idea. Maybe it’ll take off across the country. I guess it’s sort of like living off campus during college – like minds residing together with sort of a shared purpose. I’m interested to see what the turnout is and what types of businesses emerge.
There’s are some interesting neighborhoods of beautiful old mansions and Victorian homes north and east around the castle. Going east from there down Dodge to Midtown Crossing you’ll find some fun pubs and good places to eat. Enjoy the class and Omaha!
I just went down Dodge for the first time last night. Need to check that out more as it seems to be the place for most everything. And thanks for the tip on Midtown Crossing!