I have written a lot on the internet. This isn’t a surprise, I’ve been here since the mid-90s. But the truth is, most of what I write on the internet doesn’t make me proud. It hasn’t made the world any better. It certainly hasn’t made me feel any better. Most of this terrible writing is easy to associate with me, because a long time ago, I chose to use my real name as my online identity. Using my real name was supposed to make sure that I would stand by what I said, but the truth is that I am not always my better self on internet forums, Facebook, Twitter, or other places I get to write.

My personal blog is a bit different. The writing I’ve done over the years at my own domains has been… less embarrassing. I don’t mean to say that the quality of the writing is any better (it’s not); it’s just that the extra thought involved in opening up a text editor, writing something in Markdown, and taking the steps to post it has resulted in fewer emotional tirades. I do a much better job of deleting or never completing posts on my blog than I ever did writing somewhere someone else owned. It’s too bad the audience here is much smaller and harder to come by.

My blog has always been a testing ground. It’s where I’ve learned how to use Wordpress, Pelican, and now Hugo. It’s been a place to think about templating, structure, CSS, shared hosting, Github pages, server management, nginx and the like. This is where I try different types of writing like link posts, lists, professional-ish informational posts, public versions of notes to myself, images, and more. This blog hasn’t had a topic or a format. I’m not convinced it ever will. For me, a self-hosted blog is meant to be a personal lab bench.

I hope today I am starting what I consider to be the final version of this blog. I feel confident in the domain and name. I feel comfortable with Hugo and the flexiblility of my fully custom theme. I feel great about not having comments.

The look and content will change many times again, but I feel good that from here forward I’ll be using and evolving json.blog. This is my home on the web.