So things got complicated.

This site was initially cobbled together using Jekyll, only for things to hit a snag when I finally got around to updating it. Namely that an update of Ruby and Jekyll later and…

It. Broke. Things.

At least that’s what it seemed anyway. Maybe it was because I was using a rather old theme that hadn’t seen an update since forever. Maybe it was the fault of something under the hood of Jekyll. Ultimately, though, something broke. And frankly, I didn’t have the energy to even attempt to get to the bottom of why.

As a result. this site is now built with Hugo instead. After many difficulties. The key one being that maybe it’s not a good idea to let a new user choose a theme while going through the quick start guide. The one I liked turned out to be missing some vital templates, which cost me two nights trying to figure out why things were breaking. Anyway, after that, Disk Seven has a rather nice lick of paint now.

For the time being.

Personal difficulties on top of technical ones

It’s not been a great year. My mental health tanked, for which I didn’t really get the help I needed until far too late, I got scammed, and I grew increasingly frustrated with the software I had to use, largely because a good part of it was Windows-only and I’ve grown to despise Windows like the cancer of this planet it’s become.

Sorry, Microsoft. You’re a goddamn disgrace. The tipping point was when I turned on my laptop to do a thing and had to wait 45 minutes before I could reach the desktop thanks to Windows Update. Not cool.

So what am I doing about it?

Weeeeeeeeeeell…

Aside from taking a year off to properly recuperate and getting this place back in order, I’m going to get myself busy learning things that aren’t corporate malware. Wrapping my head around C and C++ would be a great start. I won a year’s subscription to O’Reilly’s Safari service, so I would really like to get the most out of that.

I also need to recoup some money, so that means finding some work, because eBay isn’t the most reliable income source, though it is doing a lot to thin out crap I’ve amassed over the years and have never once used (looking at you, cheap paperbacks) as well as the comics of which I really don’t need physical copies.

I’ve also got a few personal projects I’ve been hankering to crack on with, which should serve to get me some much-needed experience in a few areas. Stuff I’ll likely be documenting here for future reference.

I probably won’t be sticking with this theme for too long either. It’s nice and all, but there’s definitely a few things I’d like to tweak, and some changes too it that I’ve already made (it didn’t originally have a Mastodon social link for a start).

Oh, and I have transitioning to deal with. That lovely years-long process of trying to fix all the damage testosterone has done to my body.

So…

I’d better get cracking, then.