welcome to a new, hopefully improved … something.

I’m starting a new blog, that turns out isn’t a blog. It’s a digital garden! What a concept. Hopefully turning it into a digital ‘thought darkroom’ is something I can find a bit more freedom with than my ‘portfolio’ website.

I decided to go with the Astro framework, Claude recommended it over React when I was feeling icky about it for some reason. Turns out facebook made it. Weird instincts. I used Hugo for a while but their themes don’t really do it for me. The space themed CLI design of Astro is hard to dislike. Who doesn’t love it when something is space themed? The port number they use is :4321. Genius.

So this first post is mostly a placeholder, a way to break the ice and provide a point-in-time snapshot. As I launch yet another pointless, aimless project that is quickly becoming one of the most creative expressive things I have ever done.

This image of a car nearly swept away by a flooded Schuylkill River during Hurricane Ida in 2021 won 1st place at last years 2024 Art of the State Exhibition at The State Museum of Pennsylvania. This is probably the most interesting thing I have accomplished creatively in my life thus far, aside from my previous occupation.

This on the other hand is the last good picture I took that I like. It’s probably not as good as I think it is, but I enjoy it. It strikes at something lightly conceptual I rarely go after, a new beginning perhaps?

I feel compelled to talk about the future. It scares me. My own creative future looks dimmer and dimmer each day I don’t practice my craft. There’s so much younger talent out there in the world, I don’t think I could ever catch up with them. Maybe at one point I could have, knowing what I know now, but it seems those days are behind me. I have for the most part accepted my quiet future life of being a hobbyist in just about everything.

Besides my own existential contemplations, what really scares me is the current state of the world. The very technology I’m so enamored by is destroying us. Have you read the news lately? It feels like no one is coming to save us. We may truly be on our own.