Call Me Kung

Tracing an upward curve

Shit’s so boring when it’s going according to plan.
-me

Yo! It’s been a long time. I haven’t updated because I felt like nothing that eventful has happened. Nothing has surprised me, and I haven’t disappointed myself too much lately, which I’ve found is a great reason to start writing – so that other people don’t make my mistakes. Everything is pretty much on track.

I guess a few updates are in order:

Teaching

I seem to keep acquiring people eager to learn programming, and it’s exciting and scary to be guiding them toward…toward what, exactly? For those who are motivated and interested, I want them to achieve their goals. That generally means a job in the industry, which, while I don’t think is as difficult as many make it out to be, as developers are in such high demand, I find myself wondering who actually can do it. There is probably some truth to both statements: that some people just can’t program, and that everyone can program.

It’s the play between the two that’s scary. At least, when it comes to helping people achieve their goals of entering the industry. But, I live to serve. I will continue to be a resource for as long as I can.

Aggrego

Work is still awesome. It is a great, relaxed environment, built by programmers for programmers. I am organizing a hackathon in April, so stay tuned!

Speaking of which, I think the cool thing about work is that I am relaxed enough so that my personality bleeds into the company culture. My coworker, Erick, made a powerful comment when we were visiting another company, something along the lines of the fact that, as a young company, each of its members is crucial for the formative company culture. It’s true, and it’s incredibly empowering. But it’s also effortless. It will become who we are. That said, I think it’s still important to keep an eye on what kind of company it becomes.

I think I’ve been the most active in the Chicago development community, and I’m thinking about leveraging that activity into ways that helps Aggrego/Wrapports out. We’re hiring, for instance, so if you’re a Rails dev or a User Experience person, you should email me at brian.kung AT wrapports DOT com to say hi and get the ball rolling

Life

The opening self-quote and the title of the blog post are really what I was supposed to write about – about how I am basically on track and things are proceeding as planned. I am being challenged, personally and in career, but I feel like these are challenges that I anticipated. These are learnings that I knew would happen. I’m building up a nest egg for launching into my own startup and building up my technical skills.

No surprises. Just tracing a slow upward curve.

Recap

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