Rory Walker

2012 - The best yet most disappointing year of my life

Each year we hope that this year will be the year where things happen where things change for the best.

This is the year that I lose those extra pounds; get that startup off the ground.

These were my ups and down during 2012

I joined a running group and got serious about exercise 

Growing up I was always chubby; I come from a ‘big’ family so I would have my jogging phases. Running around my neighborhood or Emancipation Park, I never really saw any results in terms of weight but it was always something I did. Missy from work noticed that I jogged and invited me to jog with the Citi Runners. I joined in; the first run was pretty rough - up a very steep hill. However I kept at it, I started going more days a week (even Saturday morning’s at 5:00am). I’m currently at 180lbs, so I have lost ~25lbs

Travelled to San Francisco for the first time 

I’ve always wanted to visit San Francisco; I even started an online initiative to get me there, more info here. YamJam ‘12 was held at the The Westin and after some persuading on my part, my place of work decided to send me and the I.T Director to the conference. I remember after I received approval, booked the hotel room and the flight I was fretting that my passport wouldn’t come from Kingston in time. It did and I went. The conference was great, the city was amazing and the food was exceptional. 

Completed my first half-marathon at Disney World 

Citi-Runners do things big! When the group was making plans to go Orlando for the Disney Wine and Dine Half Marathon. I thought to myself that would be great to go, I could just imagine the awesome time that I would have with the group in addition to running the race. I went ahead paid the fee ($190) and that was me. The race itself was good, I had slight stomach issues the night of the run, but I did my best and finish in 2:41 hours. (11mins behind my target)

Moved into a proper apartment

When I moved to Montego Bay in 2010, I found a rather humble “half studio”. I said to myself I’ll only be here for 3 months, well that turned into two long years. I had enough and began looking for bigger places in a nicer part of town. That was exactly what I found. My new place is great and now I have space to entertain guests.

Now to the downs.

I missed a chance to join a project in a field that I’m passionate about

The invitation came at a bad time, however I do look back and wonder what if

I took a couple months’ hiatus from working on my projects

We all have our burnout times and maybe I just needed a break. I’ve been hacking and coding for as long as I remember. I wasn’t seeing the traction that I would of hope to received and got discouraged and wondered if this was the right thing for me.  I’m now back in action :)

Doing too much of what I don’t like instead of doing what I love

More on later

Rushel and I parted ways

We met in the CARIMAC lab at UWI in 2009, and we just clicked. However due to my move and other issues we are no more. Best wishes to her

Not having that online success that I want

This is probably a blessing in disguise; I’ve come to realize that you don’t achieve success by simply wanting it. You achieve by being relentless and keeping at it until you make it and when you think you have made it that’s when you try even harder.

Thanks to the following who made 2012 great and inspiring me to better 2013.

• Mom, Dad, Sister 
• Rushel - Always believing in me
• Matt Mazur  
• Chris Oliver
• Gordon Swaby - for killing it with EduFocal - if he can do it, so can I right :)  

Citi Runners - getting ready to an intense end of the season.

I’ve joined a running group in Montego Bay.

Things has been great, we jog three times a week. Late Wednesday (3 miles), early Thursday (6.5 miles) and early Saturday (9 miles).

I’ve dropped 20 pounds and haven’t looked back.

I’ve ran down a 5K with the team, and we have two half-marathons before the end of the year.

A few sentences that I think may change my life

0.) A few days back I read an article from Dan via Hacker News (HN). For some reason the message didn’t quite resonate with me, however I decided to do the HN usual and read the comments. Then I came across a comment from Oz. Essentially he tried to play it big, didn’t quite work out but he’s fine now. However what was more interesting is that Oz is from Jamaica. I quickly reached out and we started talking. 

In our conversation I ran through my previous online efforts he mentioned how he recently started web development and currently has a few clients paying him. I was a bit surprised but in a good way.

Then I said to him (which is the weird how much it affected me as I said it)

Its not how much you know or how fast you can code. It’s if you get people to pay you money.

I feel as developers we get caught up with knowledge and how many projects we have contributed to but as budding entrepreneurs none of that really matters. Make something, find folks that will send your digitals dollars then persuade.

1.) Yesterday I came across a post on reddit (if you love Uplifting - tear jerking stories this is your subreddit). I carefully scrolled down reading each of the hardest advice that we have received. Then I came to:

When I was about 4, I once I shot my father with a cheap water pistols. He took it away from me. I began crying and screamed “give it back to me”. After a while, he laid the pistol down, and told me to come get it. I can’t remember why I didn’t go get the damn thing, but I just kept crying and screaming “give it back to me, give it!”

He looked at me, and stepped on the gun, shattering it. I was shocked into silence. When I ask why, he said, “When you want something, you take it. Never expect anyone to give anything to you.”

That really spoke to me, I’m going through a #BeBold phase where I’m doing things that maybe I wouldn’t do and it seems to be paying off. Meeting great people, making more friends and feeling better about life. Usually if I wanted to go for something, I use to act like I wouldn’t now putting a stop to that.

2.) On the same reddit page I found another however I feel this one is more for the ladies. As I don’t really have this problem with my girl friends. I have a couple female friends that need to hear this though.

“You’re worried that he’s not talking to you enough/putting as much effort into the relationship as you are because he’s not. Move on.”

My take away if you aren’t in something you like quite b*tching and make a change.

—

I’m Rory, I’m from Jamaica. I will be be a big deal one day.

Currently working on VacayTracker | Simple Anti-Excel Employee Vacation Tracker

Git is sexy

Growing up I avoided the command line at all costs. I got my first computer when I was around 9 years old. It came with Windows 95, so I grew up during the GUI era as most of my friends did.

When Ubuntu was the “in-thing” a few loved it, they would be in the command line all day, all night. Doing simple “one-click” actions by typing 3-4 prompts. I always found this strange.

When the introduction of Rails & Git, the dreaded command line had to be used [oh no!].

Not sure if was because I actually saw everyone else using command line with these services I wanted to learn so I kept at it.

Learning Git involves a bit of a learning curve I’m come across one site that should help

Awesome Cool Git Guide

Similar to my last tip on bash alias, there’s a few of Joey P commands

alias ad='git add'

alias pl='git pull'

alias ph='git push'

alias cm='git commit -a -m'

alias sl='git status -uall'

alias ct='git checkout'

Rory’s Tips

I never considered myself an expert with it comes to programming or general Computers. Sure when I’m around family members and colleagues the word comes up. But to my other “techie” friend nope not at all. 

However I came across a blog post or was it a quote that urge persons to blog about whatever they feel will be benefical to someone else.

Think about it, how many times have a google search lead to a blog of a “average developer” who had the same problem as you did. His fix also was your fix.

With that said, Rory Tip’s is born. (Though I had a previous tip here)

I came across this when Chris advised I check out his dotFiles.

I came across “alias”, which basically creates a shortcut in your terminal.

When I open my terminal, I have to then cd 2/3 times to the ruby project I’m working in then start the server. Then open a new terminal cd 2/3 again then start the Rails Console. It’s very annoying and mightly unproductive.

I thought maybe I can use “alias” to assit;

alias cdf=’cd Code/Ruby/Filmbet’

With only three characters I jump in the project that I’m working with.

How about 

alias cdf=’cd Code/Ruby/Filmbet && rails s ‘

I start the server too :)

To do this I had to make the change in my .bash_profile file.

I always mixup, is it vim ~/. or vim ~./, especailly in typing it normally comes out wrong.

So I did  

alias bashp=’vim ~/.bash_profile’

To implement, use VIM or another text edit to access or create your bash_profile . bashrc.

It’s hidden so I recommend using the terminal and VIM.

 vim ~/.bash_profile