This is my first blog, and I thought it might be interesting to share how I’m trying to change and better my life by doing some re-training in a new career as a web developer. My name is Andrew Thomasen and I’m a 48 year old single father from Vancouver, BC, Canada. Like most, I’m trying to build a better life and future for my son, my very soon to be, new wife, and myself. For the most part, I’m making this career change because I had always felt, in my 25 years of shipping/receiving, like I really didn’t belong. I felt a little out of place in the Warehouse field. And to be honest, just tired of breaking my back, never being truly happy, and never getting ahead in life.

Something was missing in my life and I just wasn’t getting anywhere doing what I was doing. It took a lot of thinking and soul searching to finally decide what I hoped would be the best thing for me to do with the rest of my working life, and web design/web programming just seemed to be the best fit. Because I am a reasonably creative person, who loves to experiment with new and abstract ideas, I thought this would be a much more fun and fulfilling career choice. I wanted to share my journey with everyone, and hoped, everyone out there doing the same thing I’m doing would share there stories and experiences with me.

Like so many others that I know, I thought I could get away without having to do any formal training, but, some people like me learn much more effectively in a more structured environment, so, in the beginning of January 2010, my formal learning journey began, at The Vancouver College of Art and Design, and it continues to this day.  I still have  much to learn, but I’m really loving every single minute of it. It’s a lot of hard work, but it’s a lot of fun at the same time, and I never really realized how much there really is to learn to become, what I call, a “complete web developer”.

Lately I've been on a bit of a self development kick and thought it might be interesting to learn some web marketing as I now have a little more knowledge and experience in the web field now.