After visiting my website after a long time of neglect, I noticed that it was infected with some kind of malware via polyfill.io.

My blog has been on blogdown and then Quarto since 2020. I learned a ton while going through the debugging process of building and doing something completely new to me, but I’m no longer working with R day-to-day, so it was time to make a change.

It took me a day or so to get my bearings with Astro but I’m really excited about the possibilities with this framework. I am not active on any social media - my moral compass can’t square the circle of engaging on X, Facebook, etc. Those places, especially pre-takeover Twitter, were really great for staying up-to-date on tech happenings, especially when I was more focused on R package development. I do miss it and want to continue to create and share ideas on here.

Additions to this site that I’m thinking about:

• I’d love to add a notes section for very short form thoughts, opinions, media sharing, etc.
• Setting up comments and a contact form so that I can connect with anyone who feels inclined to reach out. I’ve met some people online over the years by engaging in the software/computer community and it’s really cool and meaningful to just share thoughts with new people and share ideas.
• I’d also like to do something that is creative and visually appealing. I love minimal design that is accessible, engaging, and to-the-point.
• Finding some kind of cadence in sharing thoughts has been a constant challenge for me, and am hoping that I can set up some systems to make the barrier to typing out some nonsense a lot lower.
• Adding a media section to share what I’m listening to, reading, watching, etc. I’ve seen this on other people’s blogs and think it’s really cool for recommendations and diversifying the things I choose to consume.

I’m also having a hard time with the fast-paced changes that are happening in the tech space. Coding has always been a creative and engaging way of problem-solving for me, and I miss the feeling of spending focused time in a rabbit hole and eventually coming out having learned something and having solved a problem for my team. That is obviously still possible, but it looks a lot different.

I’ll have more to say about this, and I am positive that I’m not alone in these feelings.

This blog will not use any kind of AI tools unless it is specifically noted. I will never use AI tools to write text or generate images or media of any kind. Thus far, the only way that AI has been used to refactor my blog is in the secondary form of finding documentation or other web-searchable docs that have likely been generated with the help of AI tools.

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I’m currently reading Fruit Fly by Josh Silver and it’s a fun one! I’ll be on vacation with my wife and her family soon and can’t wait to relax, take some nice walks, and spend some quality time with people and books.