I'm Dusti Johnson. I live in Kansas, where I spend my days studying and my nights coding.

I can remember, as a kid, watching Pee-wee's Big Adventure. Pee-wee starts his morning by flipping on a fan, which set off a chain reaction ending in breakfast. That was the first time witnessing a Rube Goldberg machine, and I was hooked. I knew for sure I’d grow up to be a mad scientist—like the dad from Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

I wanted to make things! Plain and simple. Technology fascinated me. But as I grew older, my mad science dreams faded. Yet, a new dream was taking root, and it had something to do with computers.

When I discovered coding, that inner mad scientist whispered to me, "This is it—you can make anything you want here." Thus, at the ripe age of 28, I finally took the leap and started programming, and I've never looked back.

The Beginning

My journey began in 2017. I was studying finance (inspired by my short-lived forex trading adventure) and I had just learned financial accounting. With this new knowledge, I figured it was time to finally grow up and make a budget. Little did I know, this would set me on a path to programming.

Over time, I looked for ways to improve my system. How could I streamline it? Could I automate anything? It was time to get serious. It was time to learn how to code. My budget system was built in Excel, so naturally, I turned to VBA first. Cool—now I had a form and a button. But it wasn't enough; I wanted more. What I wanted was a completely custom, standalone budgeting app.

Every new developer starts their journey by Googling, "What's the best programming language for beginners"—right? At least, that's what I did, and that's when I found Python. So, in early 2020, my obsession began. Mornings? Code. Nights? Yeah—I'm coding!

The Present

Fast forward to today. I'm studying computer science and working full-time (not as a programmer, yet). Over the past couple of years, I've learned Python, TypeScript, and Java, along with some React and Next.js.

I spend my nights devoted to programming, focusing on personal projects, from automation bots to full-stack web apps. My goal is to, some day soon, become a well-rounded developer capable of solving any problem (mad science optional).

Daniel H. Pink talks about the flow state in his book Drive. I remember my first experience with it: one morning, I sat down with my coffee, opened my IDE, and started coding. Next thing I knew, it was dark outside. Whoa! Twelve hours had vanished. Then the next twelve hours disappeared. I knew, right then and there, programming was my calling. This quote perfectly describes my experience.