About Me
My name is Kyle Wardlow, as you may have noticed, and this portfolio site represents a sincere effort on my part to make a big change in my life toward a career that utilizes my love for problem-solving, coding, and creativity.
I was born in 1986 in North Carolina to two religious middle class parents, both of which had managed to move up together in life from more modest homes. I came out as gay as a teenager...in the south (oof)...in the 90s (yikes), which came with its trials. Things went about as well as you'd expect (as in, not well at all).
After an unsuccessful attempt at college due to some rough circumstances, I moved to New York City in 2010 with only the proceeds from selling my car at the time. I spent the next 11 years of my life in NYC, building myself up from a cashier to my current work as an Executive Sales Assistant. I also made some amazing friends along the way.
In 2021, I decided to try to return to a more manageable pace in life and cut my expenses down by...buying a starter home and moving to Michigan (pause for laughter). My job had gone remote and the pandemic was keeping the bounty of the city somewhat at bay for me, so it seemed like a great move. Nothing got easier, but I did get an amazing husband and some adorable fur children along the way, so it's an overall win.
I love to create, whether by coding, painting, film photography, or any of a bunch of other hobbies my ADHD has decided I should pick up over the years. While some might not see coding and development as an artistic process, I find that there are many similarities in the worlds of art and coding/development. They lie within the facts that:
- Credentials are nice, but results are even better.
- Practice is key.
- Mistakes are beautiful.
- Everyone has value and everyone can learn if they truly want to.
- Sometimes the most incredible ideas come from the most unlikely of sources. and
- Perfection will never be more valuable than progress.
This is what continues to attract me to the field of software and web development, and has fueled my efforts to gain access to it. I look forward to the day I can update this to say I made that happen.
Thank you for reading this if you did, and have a beautiful day!
-Kyle Wardlow