Winning Startup Weekend Miami! The developers on my team introduced me to coding, languages, bootcamps, and such, and I was immediately hooked. I wrote about it on my blog.

I was (and still am) a journalist and PR professional. I'm the tech reporter for a talk radio show syndicated on the CBS Radio network, and I provide communications advice to (mostly) technology companies.

No one I know from the world of journalism, marketing and PR has transitioned to software development, so it's been a lonely road sometimes.

I'm an amateur Strongman - yes, flipping tires, hauling stones, and the like. It's totally nontechnical and a great stress relief. Check out my YouTube video of me carrying 345 lbs!

Ruby, Rails, JavaScript!

JavaScript, particularly ReactJS.

Oddly enough, the code sample I'm most proud of was completed for a coding challenge for a job that I didn't get! I know it seems weird, but I worked really, really hard at it, and had to learn new things, like building an API and using a NoSQL database like MongoDB. It's probably not 100% correct, and though I didn't get the job, I can say I'm proud of my work and the efforts I put in to it.

The company shall remain nameless, but you can check out the codebase on my GitHub.

I didn't fully understand Git for a long time. When I would switch branches, my previous work would somehow magically disappear, frustrating me and forcing me to redo my work.

You can imagine my surprise when I realized that versions are saved as different branches, and you can easily switch back and forth! I covered this epiphany in a blogpost last year.

Learning (and frustration!) never stops.

Also, there are still nice people left in the world: don't give up.