Now

• rewilding my front yard
• working at the same job I have had for fourteen years
• reading a bunch of wild shit
• walking around my neighborhood without my dog, sometimes for miles and miles

Next

• develop a consistent writing/making practice
• sort out the listening log on this site
• sort out everything else on this site
• be social on the web again
• go on some wilderness adventures in the fall

This reflects my ‘now’ page update of September 2, 2024. Please visit that main now page to see my dynamic log galleries, as well as an archive of prior and newer ‘now’ updates.

Credit for the ‘now’ page concept goes to Derek Sivers. I tend to get aspirational when I update it, so I’ve decided to embrace that by calling it ‘now and next.’

Standalone post link: Now and Next (September 1, 2024)

Will and I watched Back to the Future tonight. Literally dated film, but it’s still great.

This was my suggestion. I’ve decided to try to be a little more pro-active about sharing different kinds of films and music and food and stuff with my kids, rather than just always sitting back and letting them watch whatever they’re used to.

Standalone post link: Watching Log: Back to the Future

I can
do
whatever
I
want
here

Last December I opened a fresh notebook and started with this entry. It is kind of my current thesis statement for having a website, being on the internet, trying to make stuff, etc. I haven’t followed through with these ideas so far, but I feel like putting it up on the website is a start.

(A text transcription follows the notebook scan images.)

I can
do
whatever
I
want
here

[sketch¹ - self-portrait of sorts, though no beard]

I should probably remember or remind myself that I met Gin² because I wrote a blog about random stuff I was interested in

I’ve been so jaded but creating and sharing stuff on the internet is maybe probably still a worthwhile endeavor

notice I didn’t say “social media”
but I kind of mean social media but also not
media that can be social?
media that can build connection, understanding, community?
isn’t that all good media? digital or analog? art? do I mean art?

I think maybe what I really mean
by all of this
is
art?

Going to let that sit here and see how it feels in the coming days

creating things and sharing things

to

express myself
have fun / play around with
words
ink
pixels
code
images
video
sounds
connect with other people
make and do interesting things
learn stuff
make the world better somehow? (too much to ask)
“generalist”

art basically
or being human
in a good way
“the humanities”

[it is well]
[the evening and the morning
were the first day]
[light] [salt]
[life] [death]
[growth] [decay]
[seeds] [trees]
[air] [breath] [vacuum]
[nebula] [supernova]
[creation through destruction]³⁴

2023-12-17 after 11:30pm

Notes

Standalone post link: I Can Do Whatever I Want Here

I saw several fish swimming in the creek¹ this morning, as many as eight to twelve. A grey ghostly shadowed slow shimmering of fins and scales in a protected pocket of murky water beneath the rough old rock wall, across on the neighbor’s side.² I didn’t think I could capture them sufficiently in a photograph or video, especially at that distance.

They looked a little sickly or diseased to me, but perhaps I am projecting that onto them because the creek smells foul these days, and I understand it to be somewhat polluted, both from readings (see link in¹ below) and past personal observations³. In actuality I guess these fish are flourishing? I’ll check on them again soon.

Standalone post link: Murky Shimmer | Picture Not Taken

‘You have new memories of your relatives’ [Email Notification]

‘See memories’ [Action]

Not sure how this actually works, but I’m curious and a bit creeped out on the concept of receiving “new memories” and being notified about them via an email message.

Personal revelation? Phone as urim and thummim? The whisperings of the holy spirit via a neural interface?

Standalone post link: You Have New Memories

Finally got around to this one, and Will watched it with me. Should have tried harder to see this in the theater, it deserves as big of a screen as it can get.

On the other hand Will wouldn’t have been ready for this any time before now..

Also have Part 2, need to watch it this week.

Standalone post link: Watching Log: Dune (2021)

Framework and templates for the Watching Log are now live, including display on the now page and enabling “log entries as status updates” custom messages for watches.

However, the watching log itself is not yet populated with the films I"ve actually watched this year, just one of them as a placeholder.

Standalone post link: joshuawxyz changelog 20240808

I am building this web site as a place to collect and share things I’m working on, as well as my random obsessions. This old “about” page originally served as my single-page first draft/iteration. The site you are viewing is my third iteration, which has some additional features to be found by clicking on the ‘+’ sign in the top right corner of the page.

About this Project

I’m using this site to learn more about web development and design. I’m tired of silos and bloated content management systems, so I’m trying to be more DIY and Indieweb.

This is my third draft/iteration of the site, using the W3.CSS framework to build out custom theming and templating for the the Hugo static site generator, hosting the final product via Github and Netlify.

My next step will be building out a template and multi-page publishing capabilities, likely with Jekyll. My next steps will be creating a custom taxonomy, fully indiewebifying this site, and more navigational features, and possibly incorporating a photo blog section. I’m also thinking about building a hyper-narcissitic, cross-platform lifestream/microblog with Known and/or Micro.blog.

WP51

Yes, I am trying for a vaguely Wordperfect 5.1 aesthetic. I think I’m doing this because it puts me back to when I was a tween writing things and creating stuff on an old 286 in the basement. It was already an ancient computer even then. Fonts are currently IBM Plex Mono and Merriweather Serif, both via Google Fonts.

Standalone post link: About

Welcome! I am building this web site as a place to collect and share things I’m working on, as well as my random obsessions. This “about” page originally served as my single-page first draft/iteration. The site you are viewing is my second iteration, which has some additional features to be found by clicking on the ‘+’ sign in the top right corner of the page.

My Work

I am a digital content manager for the library media program and educational technology department of a large public school district. I catalog, curate, document, promote, and support library and technology resources for students and staff.

I am passionate about connecting students and teachers with the best resources and making resources ever more accessible and discoverable, whether that means a physical copy of a not-as-well-known-as-it-should-be middle grade fantasy novel or the latest digital learning tool on a classroom Chromebook.

You can see some of my work at granitemedia.org, www.graniteschools.org/edtech, on social media channels such as @edtechgsd and @librarymediagsd, and in other library and content management systems accessible only to students and staff in the district.

My Family

I am husband of Virginia and father of two children who do not yet have web presences. (I may help them with that soon.)

My Writing

I am an occasional writer. The new iteration of this site will come to incorporate writings from my once and future blogs. The old sites are forlorn, neglected things, and I actually don’t feel comfortable linking to them at this point. Reintegrating them and having a nice place to share writing going forward is at the heart of why I am building this site.

The past few years I’ve been most likely to share thoughts or links to my writing on twitter, at @jdwhiting. I also share and retweet a lot of library, children’s literature, and educational technology kinds of things related to my work, although I’ve been kind of quiet lately.

My Reading

I keep track of my own reading and follow the reading of my friends and colleagues on Goodreads. Feel free to friend me there.

When I read children’s or young adult literature I try to make it a habit to write a review, and when I do I always publish the review first on Granite Media, which is my district’s library media site and home for book reviews from school librarians, teachers, and students.

I’m a member and chair of the Children’s Fiction committee of the Children’s Literature Association of Utah. We determine the shortlist nominees for the Beehive Book Awards, which kids and teens throughout Utah vote upon to determine winners.

Other Places You Can Find Me

I obsessively and meticulously document all the music I listen to via last.fm. (The Universal Scrobbler enables me in this endeavor.)

I’m trying to learn more about film and watch more movies, and I document this at Letterboxd.

I sometimes take random pictures with my phone. Long before Instagram, I once fancied myself an interesting photographer. I may get there again. I also intend to incorporate photos directly into this site; that’s a 3rd draft/iteration feature.

I always have it in mind to eventually do something more with Pinterest than I am currently doing, such as using it to explore and curate more art and photography. My wife is a Pinterest power user, and I linked to her profile above.

I love the idea of location-based social media, but I don’t like the reality of Swarm all that much. Nonetheless, I do use it occasionally. I still miss Gowalla. If you know of a good location-based platform for documenting travel or visits to interesting places, please share it with me.

About this Project

I’m using this site to learn more about web development and design. I’m tired of silos and bloated content management systems, so I’m trying to be more DIY and Indieweb.

This is a second draft/iteration using the W3.CSS framework to build out custom theming and templating for the the Hugo static site generator, hosting the final product via Github and Netlify.

My next step will be building out a template and multi-page publishing capabilities, likely with Jekyll. My next steps will be creating a custom taxonomy, fully indiewebifying this site, and more navigational features, and possibly incorporating a photo blog section. I’m also thinking about building a hyper-narcissitic, cross-platform lifestream/microblog with Known and/or Micro.blog.

WP51

Yes, I am trying for a vaguely Wordperfect 5.1 aesthetic. I think I’m doing this because it puts me back to when I was a tween writing things and creating stuff on an old 286 in the basement. It was already an ancient computer even then. Fonts are currently IBM Plex Mono and Merriweather Serif, both via Google Fonts.

Standalone post link: About

I’m trying out Alegreya as the regular text font on this website.

I’d been using Merriweather for a few years and I liked it okay, but occasionally something felt janky with the width and spacing between characters. I’ve wanted to try something else, but messing with fonts seemed like a distraction when I don’t do enough of the basic stuff here, like actually write things, or keep the home page and menu working properly.

However, seeing how excited this guy got about a cool font inspired me to start looking at fonts again. (One of the growing number of personal-ish websites I lurk follow via RSS, a topic for another time.) The font he geeked out about wasn’t the one for me, but I encountered the Novel font, tried out the demo on a local build of my site, and really got my heart set on using it. Eventually I came to terms with the reality that I can’t or shouldn’t spend that kind of money on a font for this little hobbyist website, though.

So, I pulled myself away from browsing Fonts In Use and artisan font foundries, went back to Google Fonts to settle on something I can afford. Some of the Google Fonts, such as Alegreya, do appear to have come from cool artisan font foundries, so at least there is that. I don’t think I open up my “indieweb” site to tracking and other garbage just by using Google Fonts, but I could be wrong. I’m using free services for almost every aspect of this website, so I’m likely compromised and beholden to all sorts of interests.

Headings remain IBM Plex Mono. I have a vague sense that this pairing of a mono heading with a serif is not ideal and wasn’t ideal with Merriweather, either. However, the probability that I’m breaking design rules and conventions is admittedly an energizing agent. There’s something in me that wants things to be purposefully off and ugly and wrong; part boredom with convention, and part fear of the inability to ever get it “right.” Maybe this isn’t off enough, though? Mainly I’m just weirdly committed to these precious mono headings, while I don’t want a sans font for my text because I just prefer serif fonts for printing or displaying text. So it is what it is. I can do whatever I want here, and I can always change it again, and, to quote my old favorite band’s blog quoting Jean Genet, “to achieve harmony in bad taste is the height of elegance.” These are individually good fonts, though, so is this cacophony in good taste? Power clashing? Or just sloppy, inelegant.

Standalone post link: A note on the type, 2024-08-04