Okay, so let's do this

Fuck it, let's go then.

I've had a sad recurring item on my todo list for a while, to resurrect the blog I last posted to - what, seven years ago? So long? I am contrition.. - when I started my PhD, and suddenly no longer had to scratch around for writing deadlines.

That wasn't the last time I touched the blog - I think two years later I moved hosting providers, decided to do all the migrationy stuff myself, and after seeing the new homepage in place dusted off my hands with the satisfaction of a job well done, and thought no further on it (I had draft chapters to avoid at the time). I can't remember how much time passed before I checked whether any of the links actually worked, and discovered that I had managed to retain the homepage, and.. nothing else. The only excuse I can offer for this frankly poor sanity checking was those draft chapters (I was almost certainly avoiding different drafts by then. That actually sounds reasonably productive until I recall that most of them were for the same fucking chapter. Every year, like pre-whatever-makes-clocks-actually-accurate-clockwork, I would produce a new draft of chapter one, until it got to my final year and I eventually had to face the awful truth that a thesis needs more than one chapter).

Then, for the longest time.. I did nothing. I meant to sort it out, I really did. But there is a well-worn trope about the developer who wants to start a blog, and of course can't possibly until they've built the bastard thing from scratch, and that was part of the problem. I wasn't using WordPress again - fuck that noise, even if it did garner me a lovely crop of comment spam and it really wasn't their fault that I incompetently managed to delete the last one. One must draw a line somewhere.

But tonight I was feeling in a writing-things mood, and so: here we are. This is (currently) using Gridsome - I wanted to try a framework based on Vue, it was between Gridsome and Nuxt, and I wanted to see how they do things with GraphQL. Mostly though (and I should remember this) I wanted to actually post something, so even if I get curious and try something else later at least I might manage that. I will also aim for a more robust version control process than last time, which would not be hard.

In other news: today I attended a session on play (running as part of a module I'm helping to facilitate this week). It was great, and I would recommend it to anyone, although I now realise I feel awkward moving away from the anonymity this blog had before and including any names of people, places etc, which does make useful recommendations a little hard (not that I'd mind, I just enjoy swearing in an unprofessional manner. Maybe I can start some other, more properer blog and link to it. More blogs. That's clearly the answer here. I've done so well with them in the past).

I had to think of three words to describe how I would like myself to be in ten years time, and make a model of this out of aluminium foil. My three words were open, generative, and multiple (I wanted an adjective for being a pantheon, but I don't think there is one. If I ever decide to get comments working on this blog I'll ask the spambots for suggestions).

I also turned a coffee stain into an assortment of animals. If I had set up images on this thing yet I'd include a picture, but we all know where that kind of unrealistic feature request leads. Delays. So for the moment, that is all.