I don’t update my site anymore, for various reasons.

First off, I no longer have an abundance of free time. My previous jobs would leave me with something to be desired, so I would typically pull up the blog and post some musings from time to time when it became slow. Not the case with the current job, no boredom in foreseeable future.

Second, when I get free time now, I’d rather watch TV, a movie, play a video game, play poker, hang out with friends. OK, I’d pretty much rather do anything else. Updating the blog is lame.

Third, I don’t tinker around with stuff anymore. The original intended purpose of this site was to post my experiences with tech, and my unique solutions (or at least reposted hard-to-find solutions) to problems I ran into. Most of my popular posts have finally either faded out or are no longer applicable (e.g. installing MySQL 4.0 on FreeBSD 4.8, or downloading no longer available Invision Power Board 1.3.1).

Next I never really had an audience that was interested in reading the blog. I never updated enough and had a consistent basis of content to keep any regulars around. I never really pretended I did, but I assume nobody will be really sad to see this go.

Next, the information I have posted is not interesting from a historical perspective. One of my ideas behind posting on here was that I would some day in the distant future think “what was I doing on March 6, 2005″.

Next, enough personal information is out there about me, I don’t need any more. I recently went through and expunged about 70% of articles, posts that weren’t really relevant to anything. “I’m going to be doing this next week”, who cares, right? There’s more, and it’s just an annoyance.

Next, this is really the only reason that I have a domain with hosting. I have been contemplating the switch to a solution in the cloud (Google sites, specifically), and this is really my only barrier. Sure, I could utilize some cloud Wordpress or Blogger solution, but it’s not worth the effort for all the above reasons.

Finally, I’ve learned everything I wanted to know about the space. One side effect of blogging on here is that I learned Wordpress, I learned PHP, I learned MySQL, I learned how to use asynchronous javascript, I learned about mail and domain hosting. These helped me get my last job, which in turned prepared me for my current job. Now that I learned these things, the project site can be thrown away now.

In conclusion, it’s been a great 6+ years. I’ll still have an online presence, and this blog may be kept for historical purposes, just not so visible.

ETA, when I get around to it

I have accepted a position as a Technical Consultant at Appirio. This ends a 2 month, 2 day unemployment streak that I was on, the longest I’ve been out of a job since 9th grade! I do feel blessed, there are some others I know in the same situation that have not been able to locate a new permanent position.

I’m really excited about this opportunity for my career! I have to believe that some high power had a hand in forcing me out the door from my previous position, because I’d still be there otherwise. This job has better pay, more interesting work, and with a better company (of course the last two are my opinion, any former co-workers of mine).

I’m a huge fan of Boxee, I use it for my home theater PC’s front-end. I was excited to see news from the Consumer Electronics Show about Boxee, as covered by Hak5, I show which I support.

The Boxee Box — an Apple-TV like embedded set-top-ish device. Under $200? Amazing. I am buying one asap.

The coolest thing out of the Boxee booth was the keyboard/remote combo. Assuming it’s reasonably cheap, I’m getting this for sure.

I just dropped my new Ipod into the sink, and it now appears to be broken. The unit still functions for the most part, but I can’t get any audio output to work. I’m going to leave it off for awhile and see if it resolves itself, fingers crossed. I purchased a replacement digitizer for this Ipod, and never got around to installing it. Dang!

2009 was a trying year for me. For the most part, I’m glad it’s over.

Job, wife, best friend, family, faith, relationships. These are the things I lost in 2009. Some I can never get back. Some I’ve already found again, and the others are in progress. Maybe it’s the sign of the times, many others seem to be hard hit as well.

A friend lost her life this past week, and it’s made me think a lot about the impermanence of life and relationships. It’s time to let 2009 go, and start afresh with 2010. Here’s to new beginnings, in almost every aspect of my life.

RIP Marlana, March 1984-December 2009. I barely knew you, but it’s hard to see you go.