The beginning of the 100DaysOfCode challenge wasn’t dissimilar to my experience beginning the 146 days I spent on the Pacific Crest Trail. I was excited to get going, but hadn’t spent very much time preparing, and had no idea what I was getting myself into.
The first day of my journey I was tired, absolutely unsure of how to proceed, and even got lost for a little bit before I found my way to the start. Once started though, I was ecstatic and blissfully unaware of where the path in front of me would lead. Now sitting down in front of a computer and coding for an hour a day for one hundred days isn’t exactly equivalent to the monumental effort it takes to hike 2,650 miles, twenty or so miles a day, for what ended up being 146 days (aside from a week I spent off of the trail), but I find the mentality I had at the start felt strikingly similar.
Some time after finishing the Pacific Crest Trail I found myself wondering what the hell I was going to do next. Re-adjusting to normal society wasn’t exactly a seamless transition. I worked as a delivery driver at Domino’s and lived in an apartment with one roommate. Frequently after work I would spend hours aimlessly driving around in silence, avoiding going home. Being around normal people just didn’t feel comfortable. Outside of work I spent the days on my laptop tinkering around with Ruby code and researching web security trying to find some success bug bounty hunting. After all, right before hiking the trail I had successfully completed the PWK course earning myself the much-coveted OSCP certificate after spending 135 days in the labs, so making money on bug bounties should be a piece of cake right? At least until I figured out if I wanted to commit to a career in InfoSec. It didn’t go exactly as planned, and it only added to my confusion about the next step to take. By the time the lease expired I had gotten a new (but very part time) job as a bartender at a craft beer bar, but hadn’t gotten any closer to deciding the next move to make, so I just didn’t make a move. It was summer time, so after I got done working at the bar I would head outside of town where I had set up a tent and I’d spend the night there, or I’d camp at a free campground located at a town park.
Okay wait… what?
Before I keep re-living the past, let’s jump forward just a bit. This particular story isn’t about hiking after all. It’s about coding. More then that, it’s about building.
The First 100 Days
A couple of friends and I own a start-up company called ThirdsMedia. What our company is, and has been, is a story all on it’s own. Right now, we are in the midst of a reformation that began on February 2nd, 2021. We decided as a team to start from scratch and re-build the company’s foundation. We call this rebuilding, “The First 100 Days”. Each member will be taking on their own #100DaysOfX challenge according to their passion. My journey is focused on #100DaysOfCode. Typically when people do a 100DaysOfCode challenge their goal is to break through the barrier that’s prevented them from learning to code in the past, improve upon their current coding skills, or learn a new language or technology. I’ve coded in various languages over the years, but never spent enough time on one to become proficient. Because of this my goal for the 100 day challenge is twofold: I want to become strong enough in front-end development to be able to create professional, modern applications, and I want to create a MVP for our company in the form of a cross-platform web and mobile application. For this reason I chose React JS and Material UI. Focusing on these frameworks will enable me to build a beautiful and functional web application, and then with the use of tools such as Capacitor I can convert it into both an iOS and Android app.
I recall the first weeks of the hike feeling like a lifetime of experience. At the time of writing this post I’ve completed 16 days of the challenge, but already it feels longer.
At the beginning of The First 100 Days I was excited to get going, but hadn’t spent very much time preparing and, well… I’ve got a funny feeling that I have no idea what I’m getting myself into.
Here goes.
