About a year ago for giggles I tried the Rails for Zombies class at Code School. I mean, it’s zombies. I am a huge zombie fangirl and I was getting back into Java programming at the time but wanted to learn something more web develop-y. Anyway, I got frustrated with Ruby/Rails. There were parts of it that just bugged me. So I stopped.

Then a few weeks ago I discovered Python. It was an immediate love. I started with Learn Python the Hard Way mixed in with Codecademy‘s Python lessons. Also I’m in love with the The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Python. I’ve been reading it like a novel.

Then I wandered around looking for things to do with my newfound love. Django just seemed too big for my very newb hackings. I can’t remember where but a blog somewhere out there in my searchings mentioned Flask. So I plugged that little baby into my cobbled together Python studio (i.e. my newly reformatted Windows 7 laptop) and felt a little overwhelmed. Undeterred I searched out tutorials and decided to start with this one which just creates some static pages (I’m moving on to more dynamic things as I post this).

Pic spam!!

My first Flask generated page. Isn’t it gorgeous?

Added some pretty pretty CSS (I missed web design, it’s been awhile):

And ta-da:

And then I added navigation and a second page:

And just because I find it pretty, my recolored PowerShell:

I’m up late listening to the entertaining people discuss numbers and psychics on Coast to Coast. I’m also sitting on a mattress on the floor of my best friend’s apartment. There are two tiny Chihuahuas snoring at my feet and I just want to grin.

I’m on vacation from the real world for a week. I took a week off, flew down to California and I’m basking in the sun and the closeness of friends who really get me. I’ve even made a new friend in the past few weeks and of course she lives down here too. I’m tired but happy and I’m positive now that this is the place I want to live. All the time. Everyday.

I want to move to California. I want to shake things up and become a web developer and live the life I fantasize about. I kept waffling between computers and accounting, but accounting was the safe and easy way out. I knew the path. I knew it would be another two years before I had to start making tough decisions. For computers, the tough decisions start NOW. I need to get down to California, try to get into a program and then figure out what exactly it means to work in a little development company that could disappear in 5 years. It’s terrifying and yet I can’t stop smiling.

Also, I’m back with A Small Orange hosting. I just loved them too much not to go back.

So you might have seen the steady stream of yarn on the Flickr roll at the top of the page. I finished all of my finals last week and got my grades on Monday. “A”s in both so I celebrated with yarn. I haven’t knitted anything substantial in about a year, but I have some free time now. Well, outside of work at least. I won’t be going back to school until January, when I’ll be starting on my way to a 2nd Bachelors (or a Masters, still debating) in Comp Sci at Portland State.

So I’ve been knitting outside of work to pass the time.

Abyssal in Cascade Heritage Sock. I knit the “Adrienne” version. See my project page on Ravelry.

In progress Aeolian in Knitpicks Gloss Lace. I’m knitting the shawlette. See my project page on Ravelry.

I also have a some socks and the bottom hem of a cardigan started, but no pictures yet. However, I have tons more yarn lying around and so this weekend I’m going to spend some of my hard-earned money on this:

I technically already own a loom (and a spinning wheel for that matter) but my loom is ginormous (32” wide) and barely fits in my apartment when I try to warp it. The Schacht Cricket is only 10” wide and perfect to weave scarves on, so I’m taking the plunge and am going to try to get through some of my stash which is also starting to take over my apartment, especially since I haven’t been knitting for a while and I still have a bunch of fiber to spin eventually too. Who knows, maybe this will be a fiber blog yet.

I’m about a week and a half away from the end of the school term and these last few weeks are devoted almost entirely to final projects in both of my classes. The more “important” class involves a lot of OOP theory and some lovely easy Java programming (except the final which is in C++, which for some reason I can’t find the love for). The fun one is my game design class. It doesn’t really count for anything for me and it’s not really programming, even though I’m eeking out as much code as I can in GameMaker (we have to use it).

My final for the fun class is to create a an original game and write a giant design doc on the process, but I’m hopelessly enamored with the actual game now. The problem with this is that I want to really, really code it. Not just mess around. Enter a vague knowledge that there are things out there more advanced and a few Google searches later I’m staring at Visual C# 2010 Express and some online tutorials on XNA.

I’m really trying to put the brakes on this. Not forever, but just until I can finish up the term. I have no plans to continue with school for a while. I’ve done everything I can online, now comes getting a new car and an actual will to drive into Portland so I can finish my 2nd Bachelors and I don’t think I will see those goals met before 2013. I’m studying for the CompTIA A+ exam, but I think maybe it’s time I designed a computer game. Also June is National Game Development Month, which is not helping because my projects aren’t due until June 14th and I really would love to design a game this month.

Oops. That’s really all I can say to start off this post. No one will read it anyway and for that maybe I’m glad. leaena.com has been down for probably two months now if I can do my math right. It’s annual billing cycle came and went in March and I was such a ball of mess and unhappiness and I haven’t touched this site in so long that I never even checked. My old site, the one that the DNS servers probably are still pointing to for most people, is dead and gone. It was hosted through ASmallOrange and I have nothing but good to say about them. This new site is not hosted there for a variety of reasons. 1) I am too much of a wuss to ever talk to them about unsuspending me/seeing if my info is still backed up and 2) I need a fresh start and to make it completely fresh new blog, new domain hosting (leaena.com is now hosted through Namecheap when that whole leave GoDaddy day happened awhile back), and new webhost (MDDhosting).

My life is still mostly hell (I have a flair for the dramatic, but in reality I’m not in a very happy place right now) and I haven’t done much about it, but I’m taking small steps. I think my goal here is to write every day about something, anything and post it no matter how stupid/personal it is.