Full Circle

Five years ago today I decided to play with some blog software to see if I could install it on my own. I was successful and published my first blog post. It had something to do with Froot Loops if I remember correctly. I also remember that I had a major typo in the name of the blog. I typed "A Utter Waste of Time" and didn't realize the mistake until I was heckled by another user on the internet. That pretty much set the standard for my blog experience right up until today. Posts without a point and a succession of horrible typos defined my online image right up to today. Sure on rare instances something of meaning might have wormed its way into the site, but overall I don't consider much of it worth the storage space the 1s and 0s took up. I never meant it to be more than an experiment with what was then a budding technology.

Over the last six months I have occasionally wondered if any of it would continue. There are plenty of reasons to kill the site. Mostly I was worried that I wasn't being fair to myself. I worried that the image I portrayed was not accurate and, quite frankly, not always positive. After I finished graduate school and started thinking about my future both professionally and privately I decided I wanted to take the site in a slightly different direction. I wanted it to continue because many amazing things have happened since I first went live five years ago. Most importantly, I have met a handful of people with whom I have become friends and that alone makes it worth the effort. I also think writing here has made it easier for me to be more sociable in the "real world". There is something freeing when you realize a person knows a bit about you even before you meet. For someone who is naturally very reserved that little thing goes a long way to helping me relax around others. There are other reasons for wanting to keep up the site, but that is something to talk about at another time.

Today marks the soft relaunch of this site. On a purely technical level it has been interesting. I tried several different platforms and was not happy with any of them. On a strong recommendation I tried Drupal. I initially thought it would be the right choice but as I got into the system (after 1.5 hours of struggling with the install, but that too is another story) I found that it wasn't really blog focused. I didn't want to go full CMS so Drupal eventually got the boot. I then went back to MT. MT and I have had a love/hate relationship especially since the release of version 4. Version 4 was such a departure from 3 that even today few styles have been developed for the platform and the performance of the system after I upgraded was horrible. I installed MT because it is comfortable but quickly decided I needed to try something else. That brings us to WordPress which is driving the site today. I am not totally sure that this is the way to go. The abundance of themes is amazing, but MT still seems more developed. I certainly like MT's publishing interface better. WordPress, however, seems a little easier to customize. Overall, however, I think my lack of coding ability is the major deficiency with all the platforms. Regardless, WordPress is the winner for the moment.

The banner is a photo I took at Disney World this year. I suspect it is temporary as is the rest of the design. I really wanted to go live today as the 5 year anniversary of this site had meaning for me but it left me with little time to work on layout. It will likely change. Of course, any ideas are always welcome. Now that I have that new, fresh blog smell I hope to be able to use it to provide insight into a life that while simple, is anything but ordinary. I am a proud atheist living in the bible belt. I am a serious professional who is just a kid at heart. I am a son. I am a father. I am a husband. I am a geek. I am an American. I am the Walrus. No, wait...something is not right there... Anyway, I hope those that have been with me over the last year stick around. There are interesting things yet to come.