jeremyrandall / blog /

Okay, I’ve been doing all kinds of work on this site, including going through the tags and categories, cleaning up comments, updating plugins and switching to a new theme (with much easier to manage widget support); you may notice some little differences here and there, but by and large things should look pretty much the same.

There’s a new tag tree at the bottom of the right-hand sidebar, and new drop-downs to find posts by category and by date (and yes, there are some entries going back to 2001/2002-ish).

• Day-after-Thanksgiving vegetarian/vegan Thanksgiving dinner with new friends was fantastic.
• Emails and text messages received today have been making me smile.
• Horatio Hornblower DVD borrowed from the Library was fun and I’m going to borrow more.
• Chilly with crisp sunlight outside, cozy with steam heat inside.
• Helped comfort a dear friend last night who’s going through a breakup.
• Dinner plans with rockstar friend “Southern French” tonight.
• Upgraded this blog software and updated the spam comment filtering system.
• Checked backups and tweaked settings.
• Had some turkey meatballs for lunch (I’m about 65% vegetarian right now)

Jebus, have I been busy! I’ve been interviewing for a new job, have been writing a lot and have been volunteering my time helping with some web sites and online communities. And I’ve been feeling really great about all of these things!

Today I’m at my friend Kate’s house and we’re both sitting on the couch writing on our respective laptops as some Harry Potter movie plays in the background. Kate’s an amazingly talented writer and we do some great work when we can get together and bounce ideas off each other.

I’ve been doing some creative blogging elsewhere and have decided to shut down that blog and move the posts I’ve written there over the last few months here to this blog. The topics on that blog are technology, design and health issues. I’ve found that these things are near and dear to my heart and I’m looking forward to incorporating them here, both the old posts, and writing new ones. I’ve always had a bit of a problem defining what this blog should be; I’ve found it hard to figure out which parts of my personality and interests to blog about here, since this site’s domain name is my real name and I’ve had this weird sort of pressure to “be my own brand,” if that makes any sense.

As I’ve become more of a writer and have started to meet and build relationships with other writers and bloggers, I’ve been impressed at the way many of them just write from their hearts simply because they are writers, artists, creative people. I’m going to do that more here. I still work to write things that are appropriate and work-safe, here, but I’m going to be doing more off-the-cuff entries, more diverse topics and, well, just more writing.

So here we go on this next phase! Oh and I’m going to maintain the date stamps of the entries that I’m moving here to this blog (with a similar explanation posted near the first one).

I’m posting this entry on September 9th, 2008, although I’m writing it on November 25th, 2008.

What’s that, you say?

Okay, so I started blogging at another site about technology, design and health issues in September 2008 (the date stamp on this post) but I decided in November 2008 (when I am actually writing this) to shutdown that blog and move those posts here. I’ve decided to keep the original date stamps of the posts I’m moving to this blog, so this entry is to give some context to what is coming, for folks reading chronologically. Make sense?

So yeah, technology, design and health issues, plus photos and more writing about San Francisco. Here’s the explanation from the future:

I’ve been doing some creative blogging elsewhere and have decided to shut down that blog and move the posts I’ve written there over the last few months here to this blog. The topics on that blog are technology, design and health issues. I’ve found that these things are near and dear to my heart and I’m looking forward to incorporating them here, both the old posts, and writing new ones. I’ve always had a bit of a problem defining what this blog should be; I’ve found it hard to figure out which parts of my personality and interests to blog about here, since this site’s domain name is my real name and I’ve had this weird sort of pressure to “be my own brand,” if that makes sense.

As I’ve become more of a writer and have started to meet and build relationships with other writers and bloggers, I’ve been impressed at the way many of them just write from their hear because they are writers, artists, creative people. I’m going to try to do that more here. I still work to write things that are “appropriate” and “work safe” but I am going to be doing more off-the-cuff entries, more diverse topics and, well, just more writing. I think this is all part of being a part of the bigger world in which we all live.

So here we go on this next phase! Oh and I’m going to maintain the date stamps of the entries that I’m moving here to this blog (with a similar explanation posted near the first one), so the post numbers are going to be a little strange for awhile. Oh, technology!

This post is that “similar explanation posted near the first one.” Enjoy!

I’ve done a bit of rearranging of my web site. This blog is in the same location, but it’s no longer serving as the main page. That has been moved to the wiki, with appropriate redirects and auto-refreshes leading there. It occurs to me that this overall site has been in existence for quite awhile now; it’s like a house that I just keep adding new wings on to and changing where the front door is. Not to mention all of the rooms that are hidden away at the end of long hallways, and the stored files and trinkets from years ago neatly cataloged in the basement. Is the analogy making sense?

April was a busy, fun, active, scary and difficult month. I’ve been working quite a bit, ejoying many social activities and feeling vaguely guilty that I’ve barely been sailing this year. April includes an anniversary of a family member’s death, for which I take some time off and do something meaningful to mark the occasion and remember that person.

Geez, it’s already halfway through May. Wow.

So I have been TV-free since ~April 23rd. And I am, in fact, finding that that prompts me to go out and do more things in the evenings. I basically plan or find something to do each night after work. On nights when I do just come right home, I listen to music (I bought a ton of new music), read, clean my place, rearrange things and generally be more productive than I would be with a television. So it has all worked out the way I wanted it to. I did watch The Office at a friend’s house the other day; I do miss that show.

Losing TV is just part of an ongoing self-improvement tack. I gave up diet soda to reduce my sodium intake; since I’m not a coffee drinker, I went ahead and gave up caffeine as well. I didn’t realize just how much caffeine I had been taking in; the first three days without it I could barely stay awake. I was literally sitting in my cube at work trying not to nod off. Once I got past that, it has been fine. I’ve been drinking a lot more water and I can feel the difference.

I’d like to see if I can develop a better “voice” for this blog.

Lately I have been underwhelmed by the “safe” and “noncommittal” writing that I have been doing here. Don’t get me wrong, I really am a fan of exploring San Francisco Parks, but I feel very little passion when I write a magazine-like blurb about big trees and hiking trails.

If you read back far enough you’ll find some major time gaps and a lack of theme that goes back several years. The entries prior to 2006 were lifted from the journals and blogs I kept before this one; the deeply personal items did not make it to this public space.

I keep a private journal elsewhere, a traditional diary of sorts, which allows me to explore a lot of my thoughts and feelings while maintaining a sense of privacy. On this site it is a challenge for me to balance sharing too much about my day to day life versus writing in a way that shares virtually nothing of my real feelings and opinions. I tend to do the latter, which ends up being rather lifeless.

I would like to achieve a better balance.

Very few folks read here at the moment, but if anyone has comments, I’d love to hear them.

The site has been upgraded to WordPress 2.0.1.

I’ve upgraded the site to WordPress 2.x. So far, so good. I have turned on the comment feature, so if you’d like to comment on the articles or pictures here, please do so. You will need to register and I’ll have to approve comments before they post. As I’m sure you understand, that is to prevent “spam comments.” Geesh.

I upgraded to WordPress 1.5.x today. I am really pleased with how this software is coming along. It has a lot of new features, including a “page” feature that makes it much easier to set up general “static” pages.

I have been going through my old entries, previous journals, and archives of photos and files, adding items to this site. I’ve tried to maintain original dates as much as possible. I still have a ton of data to sift through, so more posts are on the way. I have to do a lot of cleanup too.