Ruralocity Blog

This blog of mine just won’t stick. I can’t commit to it in its current form, and I think I know why–it rambles along with whatever interests me at the moment, and if you know me at all you know my interests wax and wane with the tides. So, as elsewhere in my life, this site is chock-full of half-started initiatives that never go anywhere.

I need to work on that. Here, at least.

Awhile back I had an idea about a blog called “Series,” in which I’d post everything I did in a certain venture and give it my all until that venture fizzled. For example, when I had that idea I was getting ready to drive back to Kansas after four years in Seattle. I was going to document the trip with photos and words. The problem with that one was I’d forgotten from the original trip up there that there’s really no time to stop and smell the roses–I was on a mission to beat the truck with all our stuff. I made a half-assed attempt but nothing really came of it.

But I still think it’s an interesting way to get a slacker like me going on writing. So here’s what I’m going to do.

First off, I want a new theme for my blog. The one I was using, Particles, looked neat but had limitations. This new one, plaintxtBlog, is OK and will work for now, but I need something more suited to me. That will probably mean going back to crafting a custom WordPress theme, but I hate PHP. And I kind of hate WordPress. Supposedly TextPattern and Emotion Engine are better ways to go, but they still have that PHP albatross going against them. I think the general consensus in the Rails community is that you should write your own engine, but I don’t see the point when someone somewhere has surely written something that would work for me. I’ll probably just stick with WordPress since it’s easy to host and manage with my provider.

Second off, but more importantly, is the content. This is not the place for random non-sequiters and software tips. I’ve got Twitter and Pownce for that kind of stuff. It’s also not the place for “this is what I did today” posts or what I think about an R.E.M. album I pulled out for the first time in years, because frankly, nobody cares. I’d rather this site document the brief, sometimes intense moments in which I’m interested in something more than anything else.

It’ll be good for a laugh, if nothing else, like “Hey, remember that time I could tell you from memory the specs on a few dozen esoteric European sports cars? Ha ha ha!”

I debated a bit on what to do with what’s here now. A couple of the things I posted drew some traffic, so it would seem foolish to do a mass-delete. I’ll probably make a category to store all that junk, just to get it out of general sight, and go from there. Fresh starts are good, right?

Now I just need to put together time to put this all together and get a new, consuming interest to drive it. School is almost over. I’m in a rather pointless summer class right now, and then my final project looms this fall, and then that’s it–I’m back to determining my own schedule and interests in January. Who knows what those interests might be, but I can tell you they won’t be related to instructional design or educational technology.

So anyway, I don’t know who actually reads this–there are at least a few people popping in and out based on what I see on Google Analytics–but I figured I’d give you a heads up. I need to make this work for me, you know?