The subtitle of this entry could be “fighting with Statamic, getting thrown to the ground, getting up, dusting myself off, getting kicked in the teeth, spitting out blood, advacing with fists up, and finally getting a knock-out blow in”.
In truth, I’m pretty sure that my issues in getting Statamic to work the way I want is 95% my fault. It was one of those scenarios where I had it working, made a minor change, broke something, reverted my minor change, everything still broke, omg wtf, ask ChatGPT, and down that rabbit hole I went. I think I also relied on ChatGPT too often.
My “Breakthrough” in fixing my issue started with reading the Statamic Docs. Which… I would think ChatGPT would’ve read. The issue stemmed from something stupid simple: wanting to put images between pagagraphs in the blog post. Something that’s pretty much default in any article-posting type of system. I’m not sure why originally it wasn’t working, but after several hours, I finally got things sorted between my Bard Field type, the Blueprint, and my content.
whew.
Now back to my semi-regularly posting drivel schedule.
The title of the this post would’ve made more sense had I managed to get my blog moved from Grav CMS over to Statamic sooner. Before the Statamic website refresh. Before Buckshot Thunderstride (the fantasic elk above) was removed from the homepage in favor of the new design (which is gorgeous). I started the process of moving the blog away from Grav CMS some months ago... but I got lazy. Copying each blog post by hand is a tedious process. I also discovered a bunch of old LiveJournal posts from my LJ Blog (first entry was July 10th of 2003) that was still active. So I went through and copied those and put those all in the new blog.
And then my faithful 2015 MacBook Pro bit the dust. The laptop was starting to really slow down, and even after running the First Aid options in Disk Utilty, the laptop still struggled. I even did a full system wipe and reinstalled the OS. But still, I would type and the letters would appear about 1 to 2 seconds after the keystroke. And then I noticed there was a lot of heat coming from the keyboard. So, yeah.
I was building everything locally using Statamic and Herd, and thankfully I managed to store the work I’d done in Github (who’s a good developer!!). I’ve since been putting off buying a laptop, as I feel like I have a Mac Studio, so I don’t actually need a new laptop. But it is nice to not always be shut up in the office. It’s nice to hang out at the dining room table with the wife, even if we’re both plugged in. So I’ve been going back and forth about buying a laptop... but man, those new MacBook Air M4s are a very tempting deal. I imagine I’ll pull the trigger on within the month.
But back to Statamic. I’ve been wanting to move the backend of my blog to Statamic for awhile. I really like the control panel and the way everything is setup just seems to make sense to me (mostly). There’s also some great tutorial videos on YouTube and also on Laracasts, which I purchased a subscription for (but the Statamic tutorials are free!). I’ve had an idea for a new website for some time now, and I didn’t want to build it in Wordpress. PHP, with Laravel, feels like a good fit, so I took some of my freelance money and purchased a lifetime subscription. I already feel like I’ve received my money’s worth with the Statamic tutorial, and the videos I’ve watched so far as an intro to Laravel have been instructional as well.
But before I get too far off topic, back to Statamic. As I’ve noted, I tend to jump around with various CMSs, always wanting to try the latest and greatest. But I’ve also been wanting to stick with the flat-file CMS approach. I like the simplicity of not needing a database, and it’s one less avenue for script kiddies to attack the blog. I’m also not super well-versed on databases in general, and though systems like Wordpress handle the heavy lifting, using Markdown files for the blog makes more sense. I do plan on utilizing a database when building the website I want to use Laravel for, so that’ll be a learning experience.
I also prefer the control panel Statamic uses. It’s cleaner, and allows for greater customization than was apparent with Grav CMS. And, to be frank, maybe I was a bit bored. And, if I’m completely honest, I really enjoy the way Jack McDade, one of Statamic’s founds, presents his tutorials on the Laracasts website. There’s something that I find very down to earth about them. It’s always a plus to be entertained while learning!
Going into the new year, I've been thinking about resolutions and accomplishments. I have a list of things I'd like to achieve this year, and I thought I would write them down here so I can revisit at the end of the year.
Health/Body
Exercise more. Not necessarily to lose weight (though lord knows I have a lot of weight I could lose), but just to be more mobile. Less sitting in front of the devices and more moving the limbs.
Break the habit of eating while watching sitcoms. I can finish a sandwich in 10 minutes, but I have 15 more minutes of sitcom to watch, so I feel the need to find something else to eat while finishing the show. Stop it.
Get outside. I work from home and spend a lot of time indoors. I need more fresh air!
Look into therapy. I believe my mental state deteriotated during the pandemic and never fully recovered. It might be beneficial to talk to someone about things
House
Get at least one of the following projects done:
Redo upstairs bathroom
Paint main floor
New counters, backsplash, paint, and bar for the kitchen
De-junglefy the backyard
Replace driveway
Misc
(wasn't sure how to title this one)
Become more of an "anti-capitalist".
Attempt to repair/upgrade before buying new.
Don't fall prey to needing the "latest and greatest"
If I do need to purchase something (big ticket items), research for reliability and longevity
Ignore Social Media
deleted twitter
deleted tiktok (beat the gov't)
greatly reduced my facebook interactions, be it posting or even just visiting
greatly reduced my instagram interaction
I'm sure there are many others I could (and should) reach for, but this is a start. I might revisit this post as I think of other things to add.
I've been wanting to write for the past two months. I've been wanting to keep a cheerful outlook (as tough as that is), and everything I've written about has been full of gloom and doom. As a result, I have ended up deleting several posts.
So, with that said, let me just say, I hope you have a happy, healthy, and positive year. Peace.
The spark of creativity has fizzled. Which is fine, as I've come to accept that it comes and goes.
It does leave several projects I had in progress or wanted to work on up in the air.
These included a new backend for this site (considering going to Statamic), and a completely new website dedicated to electronic music.
Instead of productive creativity, my brain is currently absorbed by slither.io. Talk about a fruitless endeavor. It is fun though, and not every moment needs to be filled with being creative.
These are lessons I've only really come to understand here in my mid 50s.
Mid 50s. Fuck I'm old.
In other news, the wife and I spent three nights out last week. For two people who tend to stay within their comfort zone, this was pretty amazing.
We went downtown to see Sarah and meet her boyfriend. We had dinner at Georgia Brown's. In a word: divine.
That was Monday. Tuesday, the Mrs. and I were back in DC to see the Nationals lose to the Rockies. Had a really good time and given how easy it is to get downtown now, we've decided we need to try to get to at least one more game before the season ends.
Wednesday we went to a brewery for their "One-hit Wonders" music trivia. Again, great time, and gave me ideas for my own music trivia, which was on...
Sunday, I hosted music trivia for the wine club at the winery the Mrs. works at on weekends. It was the first time I've done music-related trivia (I host trivia in a non-music format twice a month there), and it went over like gangbusters. From the patrons to the staff, I had nothing but compliments about what a good time they had and even praised my music selection. I'm very much looking forward to doing more music trivia type events.
This probably should've been a regular blog posting and not a list, but oh well.
Driving around the DMV has gotten worse. People are not paying attention, feel more entitled, or too absorbed in their phones. Every time I'm out now, I witness something ridiculous; people running red lights, not stopping at stop signs, swerving all over the roads. Every. Time.
Been playing bachelor this Fourth of July weekend, as the wife has gone back to AZ to visit family and friends. Her mom messaged a few weeks back saying her dad wanted to see her. Her dad is in his 80s and when someone that old wants to see you, you go.
As no one's around to tell me what to eat, the first day she was gone I had three bowls of cereal. That's pretty much all I ate that day.
I took Friday and Monday off so I'm enjoying doing pretty much the same old thing, but for a long extended weekend. Today will involve vacuums.
Took my drone (no affiliate link) up and watched some of the neighborhood fireworks that way. Was pretty cool to view the bursts from "eye-level". Will do it again next year.
Work is essentially back to normal. No more "unassigned" tickets in the backlog. I think we can finally call that monster of a project that ate up 4 months of my life done.
I didn't want June to slip by without a post, but when realizing I hadn't written in some time, I also realized I didn't really have much to say. The biggest thing is work. We had a huge project at work whose deadline came and went (We all waved at it as it went zooming by), and I've been dealing with the mop up (re: bugs) for the past six weeks. Starting towards the end of April, project management let us all know that we needed to get this project done ASAP as they were going to present it to our government client for free, as a way to "grease the wheels", as we were up for recompete.
It was without a doubt, one of the most poorly planed projects I've been on. I won't go into details, but to put things in perspective, we had not one, but two post-mortems about what could have gone better. There might have been a third, but management threw in the towel.
There's finally light at the end of the tunnel... I'm down to less than twenty bugs, so yay. They would be easy enough to clear out but I have normal sprint work as well. So, they sit in the backlog and I get to them when caught up on work.
But yeah... that's where most of my focus as been. 60+ hour weeks, some weekends, too many meetings, and blah.
I've recently found myself exploring options other than Goodreads for tracking books I want to read and have read. While I do enjoy some of the features the Goodreads app on my phone has, mainly being able to scan a barcode and have it added to my "To Read" list, I really don't visit bookstores nearly as much as I used to, and instead rely on algorithms and reviews on book sites to tell me what my next read should be. To be truthful, my primary reason for moving away from Goodreads is the fact that it's Amazon-owned. As I already give them enough of my data, any little action I can do to take back some control of my reading habits is a good reason to switch.
So I've signed up with StoryGraph, and I have downloaded Book Tracker and Reading List on my iPad and phone. After some consideration, I opted to pay for Reading List, and hope to make good use of its "pro" features such as iCloud syncing (I currently do most of my reading on my iPad), statistics, and I can share it with the wife if she desires. She recently purchased Book Tracker, so it might make for an interesting comparison. Though she does 95% of her reading via Audible books, so not sure how that'll go.
I also purchased a refurbished Kobo Forma eReader, as another way to remove myself from Amazon's greedy tendrils. The Forma has another draw for me over the Kindle I currently have: physical buttons. The Forma has buttons on the side for page turning, AND it can rotate the screen, so I can hold it with my left or right hand and click the buttons with out too much effort. I never really enjoyed having a touch screen to turn pages, because, well, I would often touch the screen and turn pages. I am a klutz so it happened often. And, most importantly, it accesses Libby, the app I use to access my Library. Which is why I don't visit bookstores nearly as often any longer. I love my library! And the other two I have cards for as well. If you don't have at least ONE library card, you really should take a look. They're so much more than books nowadays.
After my recent post about getting out and engaging more, I found myself coordinating a team lunch for some co-workers in the area. As a few of the people were going to meet in the office beforehand, I decided to go in, even if it meant driving past where we were all meeting for lunch, and then backtracking.
It was a bit surreal to be back in the office itself. And, I realized with a bit of a start, it was almost exactly four years to the day that we'd gone remote full-time. Most of the desks have been removed, along with some of the conference tables as well. Right before we'd all gone home for good, I'd been reassigned to a different office and desk (we have three suites in this particular building), but, to be quite frank, I didn't remember what desk was mine. Ended up sitting at a table in the kitchen area.
Some of my co-workers and I discussed coming back into the office, for one day a week, or month... not sure where everyone landed on that. But honestly, I would be ok with going back once a week. I do really enjoy my setup at home, but it's nice to get some face-time in with co-workers as well. It was great catching up at lunch, and more than one person thanked me personally for arranging for all of us to meet. Seems I'm not the only one who was grateful for a bit of social contact again.
