So this is it - the inaugural post - the start of a new project for me to get back into web development and writing a bit. Maybe spend a little less time on social media, doomscrolling through what the algorithms think I should see, all the “Bad Things” going on each day that are totally out of my control.

Back in a very different era of the internet, as a kid that would clearly go on to spend too much time online, I took an immediate interest in a program called Composer that was included in the Netscape suite on my trusty new Sympatico dial-up connection. I started learning HTML and CSS and would make a bunch of probably very poorly-done websites before moving onto more dynamic content with Blogger and WordPress.

I found online community starting off with vBulletin and IPB web forums hosted by individuals. For all their flaws, there was a certain uniqueness and charm that you don’t see in Discord servers and subreddits today. I was also the “proud” owner of a phpBB-branded teddy bear that I need to find again. The rest of my very outdoorsy Canadian childhood was spent playing RuneScape, writing little programs in VB, chatting on MSN Messenger, drawing maps and reading about urban planning.

Believe it or not, I occasionally also left the house! I always had a special relationship with “getting away from it all” in nature, and that has only amplified in the last five or six years. As technology dominates more of our lives and influences it in ways we couldn’t imagine even a decade ago, we all need to get back “down to earth” a bit more.

This blog will be my exploration of that - a mix of technology, hiking, urban planning and just general media (TV, movies, books, nostalgia). Instead of cataloguing my walks and hikes on Instagram, I’ll do it here. I’m excited to see how the idea develops and evolves over time and will be using Bluesky primarily to connect as right now this site is built on my own computer using Astro and published as a static, basic website. Just like the good old days, but with a 250 MB node_modules folder 😉!