Idoru.us

Somehow when my partner heard the whole Men at Work – Land Down Under song the one thing she glommed on to was “He gave me a vegemite sandwich. Till the day I die I will never understand her but ADHD is a hell of a drug it seems. That said our first date was almost three years ago (& pandemic dating was weird as fuck) so I guess I am still curious where this rabbit hole goes.

Three weeks into the new job and it seems both interesting and challenging in good ways. I am still doing some training and such for my old job (somebody has to pick that up) and realizing that the challenges were all because of stuff outside of my control, no chance to move the needle. And while I could have just hung out and collected a check it was probably not goo for my health in either a physical or mental sense. The new job is going to be more work in some ways and yet in others i think i will be … I don’t want to say less work but less direct. The measure of my success will be about whether or not other people are successful and that is actually a good step into the future that I am starting to see ahead of me.

In Idoru news…. I think i have settled on a general idea for a redesign (that … well I am not sure who will even see it but why not modernize it?) that will hopefully modernize it a little bit. I still think the era of blogs is more or less over thanks to faceyspace, twitter, insta, etc. But I might as well keep this little corner of the internet carved out for myself. I suspect that after the redesign and then after work is no longer busy (January-ish) I will probably migrate to a new host that is cheaper. The other thing I think that is coming is that I will probably resurrect 8feet which was a weird photoblog thing I did (and have lost all the photos of it appears, maybe they are in icloud somewhere) back in 2014 or so. It was really a snapshot a day project and I think the new thing will be more of a random images I take that interest me situation. It also will probably be integrated into idoru as a blog much better which is also a win.

Part of that is a desire to be creative again. I know that a lot of people lost their voice during the last few years and I am no exception. I have been tossing around a variety of hobby type things to break that funk for a few months but with no real traction. So I suspect I will pick one and give myself permission to be awful at it again and go from there. Photography, music, who knows where it will be. I have a little bit of extra coin right now that helps me feel like I can do them all.

In things I can definitely do, I have a new project that I am calling Black and Blue. I am sure you can guess where the black comes from but the rims are blue to answer the other half. Planning on new brakes, new gears/shifter, new pedals and cranks, etc. Most of those will probably also be blue. It rides like a pig, is heavy as hell, and was cheap for the original buyer. Should also be a lot of fun during the snow I suspect. And if not, well I am not out a ton of money. Also i am definitely going to learn a lot about this shit.

I would say that is all that is fit to type but its really not. There is still i could mention regarding twitters death and replacements, re-reading the archives here, desire to travel, and so much more. But I think this is enough for right now and that’s worth celebrating as well. Maybe I will do that tomorrow.

So I really haven’t done a good job of keeping this sucker up to date but hey, its still better than the several years of silence that it contained for years. And as I said before I don’t know that I will really keep up with it, the age of blogs is mostly past although at times I feel a resurgence here and there.

In very very minor site news I removed the long defunct twitter sidebar widget and a mastodon link got added at some point. Turns out I am way more active at bluesky than anywhere else at this point but even that isn’t as active as I used to be. Turns out my first rule of change management is right (in this case): Before you make changes understand why things are the way they are and what depends on that. But I don’t think elon is good at most things.

In other, very minor news, I am giving some serious consideration to migrating hosts. I don’t do much and I an cut costs and just make my life a little easier so if I don’t do it this go around I will probably take care of it in February the next time I am up for renewal. I am also planning on adding a farnaby.<tbd> mostly for bsky but also as a landing page for part of my identity. The government name page is also going to get an update to better reflect things like ‘who I am’ and ‘how to find me’ and ‘why hire me’

Speaking of that last bit, turns out I got a new job recently. Its a good feeling as I was in the running for 4 positions this year and feel like I probably ended up with the one that has the best runway towards the future although it does hurt leaving a lot of money on the table. All well, take it and run anyway.

Otherwise, life just continues trucking along. Busy with house stuff, busy with a partner, busy with work, frankly just plain old fucking busy.

But so it goes. So it goes.

It’s been interesting sort of rejoining a different part of the internet than I have occupied fr a long time and also being unsure if I want to rejoin.

In other news, my trip to palm springs was pretty great. I totally understand why others (and myself) make a concerted effort to get away from MN for a time in the winter. Plus its pretty there in a way that it isn’t here.

I genuinely like MN, enough that I very happily bought a home here and continue to chose to live here. But the winters do get to be a bit much. This is probably also why I have a trip to Mexico booked.

One of the things that I am trying to do to make winter more bearable is winter biking. I was gifted a free (cheap) fat tire bike that will definitely need some work and components but at the same time it fulfills a few needs.

1. It’s free
2. It will be fun to work on
3. I don’t care much what happens to it (see 1).
4. I can ride it year round.

In terms of my house, I am still learning to live in it and honestly, having a lot of fun with it. We rearranged some furniture today and the living room feels better. More to be done for sure (for a long while probably) but its … honestly starting to feel like home in the right ways.

I have also rejoined the gym and OMG I have missed it. Talk about feeling good in the right ways.