The Weblog of fLaMEd

Freaks and Geeks

2024-03-10T00:00:00Z

I just finished watching all eighteen episodes of Freaks and Geeks. Although I had seen most of the show when it originally aired, I hadn’t watched some episodes until now.

Freaks and Geeks is a TV show that aired for only one season in 1999-2000 but has since gained a cult following. The show centres around teenagers belonging to two distinct social groups: the “freaks” and the “geeks”. The show explores themes of identity, fitting in, and the pressures of adolescence in a way relatable to anyone who has ever felt like an outsider.

For a millennial born in the 1980s and growing up in the 1990s, this show captures the essence of the decade. It portrays an era before smartphones, social media, and other technological advancements when teenagers had to navigate the complex social dynamics of high school in person. The show is also a nostalgic trip back to when music, fashion, and pop culture were different from what they are today. Freaks and Geeks is a timeless coming-of-age story that resonates with me today. Lindsey, who has been a geek with a new love of rock music, starts to relate to the freaks and befriends them.

It’s incredible how well the show has held up over time, even though it was only on the air for one season in 2000. Watching the show in 2024, it has aged well. The themes of identity, fitting in, and finding oneself are as relevant today as they were back then, and the show’s realistic and nuanced portrayal of adolescence should resonate with viewers of all ages.

Even though the show is set in the 1980s, it doesn’t feel outdated or irrelevant. For others my age, the show’s lack of reliance on technology and social media makes it seem relatable to a simpler time. The show’s focus on human connection, personal growth, and self-discovery is timeless and will always be relevant.

While it’s unfortunate that the show only lasted for one season, it’s also a blessing in disguise. The show ended on a high note, with its characters in a good place and its storyline wrapped up satisfyingly. If the show had continued, it would have lost its magic and become less memorable. As it stands, the show remains a beloved cult classic that will continue to resonate with viewers for years to come.

Growing up in Aotearoa and attending high school between 1998 and 2001, I found myself relating to the plot despite being from a different country and period in time. The show’s themes of identity, fitting in, and finding oneself were relatable to my experiences growing up. Sam and Cindy’s relationship is too real compared to similar situations where I pursued a particular girl for superficial reasons that didn’t end up being the best choice.

Also, how could you not relate to Bill settling down for a TV dinner at home alone? I loved nothing more than a Friday night at home, alone with a pizza dinner in front of the television.

Like the characters in the show, I went through a period of transition where I moved from being a “geek” to a more rebellious and non-conformist personality, which the show depicts as a “freak.” I ultimately found myself while still sticking to my geek tendencies, carving my niche in high school for better or worse.

When I think about it, Freaks and Geeks is a timeless coming-of-age story that captures the universal experiences of growing up and trying to find one’s place in the world.

As someone who grew up in a different country and time period, I find it fantastic to see how the show resonated with a kid on the other side of the world. It continues to be a relatable and nostalgic trip back to a different and, in a way, a simpler era.

I was listening to Freaks and Geeks while writing this post. If you grew up like me, you might enjoy it too.

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Monthly Recap: February 2024

2024-03-07T00:00:00Z

Hello web surfers, where did February go? We’re right into March already, so I’m a bit late with this post.

I spoke about writing less last month, and I’ve outdone myself during February with only two posts! Don’t worry, there’s a good reason for that.

Making Websites Should Be Easy: Creating a website can be daunting, especially for non-developers. As someone well aware of the struggles with the process, I spoke with Sara on Mastodon about simplifying the process of creating a website for non-developers on the back end of a recent post, “An Easy Web”.
Building My Comics Page: My comics page sat empty for years. I finally sat down and did something about it using eleventy-fetch and League of Comic Geeks. In this post, I detail how I did it.

Anyway, I was busy behind the scenes working on the website itself. With the recent release of Eleventy-Excellent 2.0, I took the time to rehaul the entire backend; converting everything was slow. The great thing was that many of the additions I’d hacked in over the past year are now part of Eleventy Excellent.

I still have a few more improvements to make; we’ll see how that goes.

Also, me and the 32-Bit mod team—xandra, Yequari, Key, Jay, and Kaylee—launched the new 32-Bit Cafe Forums to great response. We’ve had 150 members sign up, and there are heaps of great discussions happening already. Come join us if you’re into website building for fun.

Catch you all next month, laters.

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Building My Comics Page

2024-02-29T00:00:00Z

My comics page has been 🚧 under construction 🚧 for around four years.

Recently, xandra’s post on our forum about library and book management software for your website reignited my motivation for organising my comic book collection.

My aim was to create a catalogue of my comics, access my collection data, and use it to build my comics page.

I searched for tools to catalogue my comic book collection and found two options - League of Comic Geeks and CLZ Comics.

However, neither provided an API or a feed to retrieve my collection data. Give me a web feed or an API for everything, damnit! While CLZ Comics is a paid product, League of Comic Geeks allowed me to get started immediately, so I decided to go with it.

To get around the lack of API or Feed, I found a neat NodeJS module, comicgeeks, that can retrieve data from League of Comic Geeks; excellent.

To begin, I added a series to my collection - House of X and Powers of X, the fantastic mini-series that marked the beginning of Hickman’s new era of X-Men in 2019.

Finally, I installed the comicgeeks module to my project by running the command npm install comicgeeks --save-dev and explored the data structure returned by League.

Starting with one of the documented examples, I created a function that fetches my collection and prints the returned data to the console:

const {
    CollectionTypes,
    fetchCollection,
    fetchUser,
    SortTypes
} = require('comicgeeks');

fetchUser('ketylust')
    .then(async user => {
        // Fetch the collection
        const collection = await fetchCollection(user.id, CollectionTypes.Series, {
            sort: SortTypes.AlphaAsc
        });

        // Print the collection to the console
        console.log(collection);

    })
    .catch(console.error);

The returned data looked like this:

[
  {
        "name": "House of X",
        "publisher": "Marvel Comics",
        "url": "https://leagueofcomicgeeks.com/profile/ketylust/collection/141932",
        "cover": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/comicgeeks/comics/covers/large-2523615.jpg"
    },
  {
        "name": "Powers of X",
        "publisher": "Marvel Comics",
        "url": "https://leagueofcomicgeeks.com/profile/ketylust/collection/141931",
        "cover": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/comicgeeks/comics/covers/large-4309479.jpg"
  }
]

Besides missing details like the published date, this was looking good. I could then change the collection type to issues to check out what the issue data looked like.

const {
    CollectionTypes,
    fetchCollection,
    fetchUser,
    SortTypes
} = require('comicgeeks');

fetchUser('ketylust')
    .then(async user => {
        // Fetch the collection
        const collection = await fetchCollection(user.id, CollectionTypes.Issues, {
            sort: SortTypes.AlphaAsc
        });

        // Print the collection to the console
        console.log(collection);

    })
    .catch(console.error);

The returned data looked like this (just showing issue #1 for brevity):

[
  {
    "name": "House of X #1",
    "publisher": "Marvel Comics",
    "url": "https://leagueofcomicgeeks.com/comic/4678747/house-of-x-1",
    "cover": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/comicgeeks/comics/covers/large-4678747.jpg?1699942708",
    "description": "FACE THE FUTURE! Superstar writer Jonathan Hickman (SECRET WARS, AVENGERS, FANTASTIC FOUR) takes the reins of the X-Men universe! Since the release of Uncanny X-Men #1, there have been four seminal moments in the history...",
    "price": "$5.99",
    "rating": null,
    "pulls": null,
    "potw": null
  },
  {
    "name": "Powers of X #1",
    "publisher": "Marvel Comics",
    "url": "https://leagueofcomicgeeks.com/comic/4517621/powers-of-x-1",
    "cover": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/comicgeeks/comics/covers/large-4517621.jpg?1701563454",
    "description": "FEAR THE FUTURE! Superstar writer Jonathan Hickman (INFINITY, NEW AVENGERS, FF) continues his revolutionary new direction for the X-Men. Intertwining with HOUSE OF X, POWERS OF X reveals the secret past, present and future...",
    "price": "$5.99",
    "rating": null,
    "pulls": null,
    "potw": null
  }
]

Pretty good, still missing date info, but enough data to start populating the page.

One thing, I can’t use data printed to the console in a Nunjucks loop. Luckily eleventy-fetch allows us to store data not retrieved from an API endpoint to the cache using AssetCache. After a quick chat in the Eleventy Community Discord, it was suggested that I use the manual storage of my own data in the cache example to build upon my function to save my data as a JSON file in the cache:

const { CollectionTypes, fetchCollection, fetchUser, SortTypes } = require('comicgeeks');
const { AssetCache } = require('@11ty/eleventy-fetch');

module.exports = async function () {
    // Define a unique cache key for your comic book data
    const cacheKey = "comic_collection";

    // Create a new AssetCache instance with your cache key
    let asset = new AssetCache(cacheKey);

    // Check if the cache is fresh within the last day
    if (asset.isCacheValid("1d")) {
        // Return cached data.
        return asset.getCachedValue();
    }

    try {
        // Fetch user data
        const user = await fetchUser('ketylust');

        // Fetch the collection
        const collection = await fetchCollection(user.id, CollectionTypes.Issues, {
            sort: SortTypes.AlphaAsc
        });

        // Save the fetched collection data into Eleventy's cache
        await asset.save(collection, "json");

        // Return the fetched collection data
        return collection;
    } catch (error) {
        console.error("Error fetching comic collection:", error);
        return []; // Return an empty array in case of error
    }
};

This was great; I put together a simple grid that iterates through the comics data to display the twelve HoX/PoX series issues:

<div class="grid">
    {% for comic in comics %}
    <div class="comics">
        <img src="{{ comic.cover }}" alt="Cover Image for {{ comic.name }}" load="lazy">
    </div>
    {% endfor %}
</div>

This works well for a collection of twelve comics, but what about when I added the other 500+ comics in my collection? Displaying the collection by series was the way to go. I modified my function to fetch issues and series and combine the results:

/** snipped **/
        // Fetch the collection by series
        const seriesCollection = await fetchCollection(user.id, CollectionTypes.Series, {
            sort: SortTypes.AlphaAsc
        });

        // Fetch the collection by issue
        const issueCollection = await fetchCollection(user.id, CollectionTypes.Issue, {
            sort: SortTypes.AlphaAsc
        });

        // Combine series and issue collections
        const collection = [...seriesCollection, ...issueCollection];
/** snipped **/

This was great, but the combined data meant I had issues with the same keys used for issues and series:

[
  {
        "name": "House of X",
        "publisher": "Marvel Comics",
        "url": "https://leagueofcomicgeeks.com/profile/ketylust/collection/141932",
        "cover": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/comicgeeks/comics/covers/large-2523615.jpg"
    },
  {
        "name": "Powers of X",
        "publisher": "Marvel Comics",
        "url": "https://leagueofcomicgeeks.com/profile/ketylust/collection/141931",
        "cover": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/comicgeeks/comics/covers/large-4309479.jpg"
  },
  {
    "name": "House of X #1",
    "publisher": "Marvel Comics",
    "url": "https://leagueofcomicgeeks.com/comic/4678747/house-of-x-1",
    "cover": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/comicgeeks/comics/covers/large-4678747.jpg?1699942708",
    "description": "FACE THE FUTURE! Superstar writer Jonathan Hickman (SECRET WARS, AVENGERS, FANTASTIC FOUR) takes the reins of the X-Men universe! Since the release of Uncanny X-Men #1, there have been four seminal moments in the history...",
    "price": "$5.99",
    "rating": null,
    "pulls": null,
    "potw": null
  },
  {
    "name": "Powers of X #1",
    "publisher": "Marvel Comics",
    "url": "https://leagueofcomicgeeks.com/comic/4517621/powers-of-x-1",
    "cover": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/comicgeeks/comics/covers/large-4517621.jpg?1701563454",
    "description": "FEAR THE FUTURE! Superstar writer Jonathan Hickman (INFINITY, NEW AVENGERS, FF) continues his revolutionary new direction for the X-Men. Intertwining with HOUSE OF X, POWERS OF X reveals the secret past, present and future...",
    "price": "$5.99",
    "rating": null,
    "pulls": null,
    "potw": null
  }
]

I wanted to separate the issues and series data into their own arrays with their own keys so that I could iterate over either. I modified the function to do this:

/** snipped **/
        // Separate series and issue data
        const data = {
            series: seriesCollection,
            issue: issueCollection
        };
/** snipped **/

My data now looked like this:

{
  "series": [
    {
      "name": "House of X",
      "publisher": "Marvel Comics",
      "url": "https://leagueofcomicgeeks.com/profile/ketylust/collection/141932",
      "cover": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/comicgeeks/comics/covers/large-2523615.jpg"
    },
    {
      "name": "Powers of X",
      "publisher": "Marvel Comics",
      "url": "https://leagueofcomicgeeks.com/profile/ketylust/collection/141931",
      "cover": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/comicgeeks/comics/covers/large-4309479.jpg"
    }
  ],
  "issue": [
    {
      "name": "House of X #1",
      "publisher": "Marvel Comics",
      "url": "https://leagueofcomicgeeks.com/comic/4678747/house-of-x-1",
      "cover": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/comicgeeks/comics/covers/large-4678747.jpg?1699942708",
      "description": "FACE THE FUTURE! Superstar writer Jonathan Hickman (SECRET WARS, AVENGERS, FANTASTIC FOUR) takes the reins of the X-Men universe! Since the release of Uncanny X-Men #1, there have been four seminal moments in the history...",
      "price": "$5.99",
      "rating": null,
      "pulls": null,
      "potw": null
    },
    {
      "name": "Powers of X #1",
      "publisher": "Marvel Comics",
      "url": "https://leagueofcomicgeeks.com/comic/4517621/powers-of-x-1",
      "cover": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/comicgeeks/comics/covers/large-4517621.jpg?1701563454",
      "description": "FEAR THE FUTURE! Superstar writer Jonathan Hickman (INFINITY, NEW AVENGERS, FF) continues his revolutionary new direction for the X-Men. Intertwining with HOUSE OF X, POWERS OF X reveals the secret past, present and future...",
      "price": "$5.99",
      "rating": null,
      "pulls": null,
      "potw": null
    }
  ]
}

Fantastic! For the sake of getting this out the door and published, I decided to modify my loop and grid to display each series in my collection with the publisher, title and a link to the collection on League of Comic Geeks so you can view each of the issues I’ve collected in that series:

<div class="grid">
  {% for comic in comics.series %}
    <div class="comics">
      <img src="{{ comic.cover }}" alt="Cover Image for {{ comic.name }} load="lazy">
      <p class="comics-publisher">{{ comic.publisher }}</p>
      <p class="comics-title">{{ comic.name }}</p>
      <p class="comics-collection"><a href="{{ comic.url }}">View issues</a></p>
    </div>
  {% endfor %}
</div>

You can check out the end result on the Comics page and the enitre function.

I want to learn how to utilise Eleventy’s pagination feature to create a separate page for each comic book series and issue. The series page should display a grid of covers with links to the respective issue pages. On the issue page, I would like to display the cover and details of the issue. Additionally, I plan to optimise the images using eleventy-image.

I want to sort the series and issues by publication date, but the Node module returns no date data. I’ve raised an issue on the modules repo, so we’ll see what happens there.

Well, I better finish adding the rest of my collection to the catalogue.

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Making Websites Should Be Easy

2024-02-17T00:00:00Z

Creating a website can be a daunting task, especially for non-developers. As someone well aware of the struggles with the process, I spoke with Sara on Mastodon about simplifying the process of creating a website for non-developers on the back end of a recent post “An Easy Web”.

We came up with the idea of providing copy-paste boilerplate templates of simple single-page starter sites that are carefully commented, making it easy for budding webmasters to understand where to make changes. Including CSS variables at the top of the styles page, with instructions for changing colours or fonts, will allow changes to be made centrally without searching the rest of the style sheet and potentially breaking things.

Creating a series of similar but different single or multiple-page templates for building personal sites, whether about the webmaster themselves or a fan site, is a great way to get started. I keep talking about fan sites as they’re a great entry point to the world of web development; who didn’t have a fan site or two back in the 90s?

The process needs to be as easy as possible, so the next step could be creating a website that hosts these templates with an automated “copy to clipboard” or “download as file” feature, allowing users to drag and drop the code into a web interface to publish their website.

We acknowledged the importance of beginner tutorials to help first-time webmasters get familiar with the syntax before using the templates. These tutorials need to be simple and straightforward, avoiding things like command line and git. It was surprising how many people suggested tools or services that rely on these advanced concepts; they are definitely not beginner-friendly…

Web hosting options were another important topic. We identified places like Neocities, a free hosting service that provides a drag-and-drop website builder, making it easy for upcoming webmasters to get started. While Neocities is a fantastic platform, I wish there were more similar services; options are great.

As our crew of enthusiastic webmasters become more comfortable with HTML and CSS, they may want to explore something like PHP for its templating and dynamic capabilities. This would also require learning about dynamic hosting and technologies like FTP for transferring files from desktop to server. For those who want to remain static, static site generators like Astro and 11ty become useful as, with a bit of learning, you can cut and paste your existing website into these tools and take advantage of the power provided.

Our vision is to make creating a website easy for beginners who aren’t developers. By providing simple templates, tutorials, and web hosting options, we believe anyone can easily create a beautiful and functional website that anyone could be proud of.

I see lots of discussion about this time to time on Mastodon with lots of ideas, but never any action, so…

Over at the 32-Bit Cafe, we have a beginner’s guide to creating your own website, lovingly created by Xandra. I put together a quick guide to folder structure 101 and a guide with heaps of ideas for creating your own website.

Sara got to work straight away on two templates; check out LinkFae and Website simple templates. And I know Blake has started working on something similar, I can’t wait to see how this space progresses.

I’ll get to work on the fan site templates soon, promise.

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Monthly Recap: January 2024

2024-02-03T00:00:00Z

Hello web surfers, I can’t believe January is already behind us.

I did less writing than I wanted this month. A few posts that I had drafted will transfer over to February and hopefully get finished. Most of that is due to family holidays and enjoying life outside with my friends.

What A Weekend: I got out and about with some good friends and enjoyed some live music.
Summer Days On The Beach: Developed over four years, this post has evolved from notes hastily penned during my peaceful moments at the bach each summer. It’s a contribution to the 32-Bit Cafe Holidays 2023 Event, delving into our precious holiday traditions.
An Easy Web: I jumped into some discourse on Mastodon, where people had started talking about the barrier to entry for creating websites. Every post was aimed at developers! I point out that the web needs to be more accessible for everyone to build personal websites, not just blogs!
A Simple Guide to Redirects on Neocities with Eleventy: Moving back to Neocities presented challenges with features that came for free with Netlify. There needs to be Eleventy tutorials for platforms outside of Netlify; this upsets me.
Dragonflight Season Three Recap: A great way to wrap up the end of Season 3 with my guild.

I’ve been agonising about being reliant on venture capital-funded services recently. This has kicked off a move back to Neocities. I’ve got a lot of thoughts about this that will make an excellent post in the future.

I realised part way through the month that my contact form using Riku Forms wasn’t doing what I wanted as Riku isn’t an email form 😂 I’ve switched over to a form that will email me if you use it while I work on getting my own setup. I have an excellent idea for Riku in the works. I’ll share it as soon as it’s ready.

I didn’t get through my backlog of bookmarks this month. Out of the ones I did bookmark, these were both fun reads:

The State of the Independent Web 2022: Updated 2024 by Brad details changes across the independent web since 2022; Directories, search engines, blogrolls, links pages, RSS and static web hosting. Overall, the independent web is healthy. The one that stood out to me was hosted services. Think polls, guestbooks, and contact forms that got me thinking about what we could do in this space?
Remembering the early 00s teen website scene by Localghost takes a trip down memory lane to an era of the web that I thought was much cooler than the Geocities era before and definitely cooler than the MySpace era that came after it.

I hope you have a great February. I’ll chat with you all next month.

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Dragonflight Season Three Recap

2024-01-14T00:00:00Z

This post is a week late. I wrapped up Season Three officially at the end of last week’s raid where we completed the Glory of the Dream Raider achievement.

Glory Of The Dream Raiders

With my guild, Ascent we achieved Ahead of the Curve: Fyrakk the Blazing, on 2023-12-17. This was our best tier yet, completing the raid on heroic difficulty 5 weeks after release.

A day later I completed Dragonflight Keystone Master: Season Three where you have to attain a Mythic+ Rating of at least 2000 during Dragonflight Season Three. I managed most of this season with pick up groups during the day. I didn’t run much with my guild as I wasn’t playing in the evenings outside of raiding.

Finishing the raiding and dungeon achievements before Christmas was great as I didn’t have to worry about that while we were away up north for two weeks. This also made the season feel quite short, which isn’t a bad thing particularly for me as I definitely have other things to focus on.

Then again, we have the new patch dropping next week. Looking forward to playing through the story as it’s looking to be Night Elf centric. I’m unsure what the raid and dungeon schedule is but I’m sure that I will clear both as usual.

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A Simple Guide to Redirects on Neocities with Eleventy

2024-01-12T00:00:00Z

Eleventy tutorials are everywhere, especially for Netlify. But what if you’re exploring platforms like Neocities? No worries, I’ve got your back.

For reasons, I’ve just moved Flamed Fury back to Neocities. Redirects is one of the things that I was relying on Netlify to handle for me. Netlify allows you to handle HTTPS redirects easily withEleventy.

After some quick web searching, it was clear that Neocities does not support HTTPS redirects, so what was I to do with my redirects where I didn’t have access or control of the server? Luckily, gold old HTML has us covered with HTML redirects.

With HTML, you can create a simple redirect with a <meta> tag.

<head>
  <meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="0; URL=https://flamedfury.com/" />
</head>

How could I do this simply in the Eleventy way? Sure, I could recreate each of the old HTML pages and fill in the <meta> tag to redirect to the new URLs, but that would be tedious to maintain.

After some more web searching I came across this post, Eleventy Redirect From by Brian Mitchell where they wanted a drop-in replacement for Jekyll redirects but in Eleventy.

Brian achieved this with a single template that I figured out after a “period of time” troubleshooting needs to be in the /src/ directory to work 😂

My redirects were configured to support the Netlify way and used the key redirectFrom.

For example, a single redirect:

---
title: I Love The Web
redirectFrom: ['manifesto']
---

Or multiple redirects:

---
title: Relics Of The Web
redirectFrom: ['/explore/', '/explore/buttonwall/', '/explore/webrings/', '/explore/blogroll/', '/explore/links/']
---

To get to work without modifying my existing frontmatter, I just had to change redirect_from to redirectFrom in the template.

---js
{
  pagination: {
    data: "collections.all",
    size: 1,
    alias: "redirect",
    before: function (data) {
      return data.reduce((redirects, page) => {
        if (Array.isArray(page.data.redirectFrom)) {
          for (let url of page.data.redirectFrom) {
            redirects.push({ to: page.url, from: url });
          }
        } else if (typeof page.data.redirectFrom === 'string') {
          redirects.push({ to: page.url, from: page.data.redirectFrom });
        }
        return redirects;
      }, []);
    },
    addAllPagesToCollections: false,
  },
  permalink: "/index.html",
  eleventyExcludeFromCollections: true,
}
---
<!DOCTYPE html>
  <html lang="en-US">
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <title>Redirecting&hellip;</title>
  <link rel="canonical" href=".">
  <script>location="."</script>
  <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; url=.">
  <meta name="robots" content="noindex">
  <h1>Redirecting&hellip;</h1>
  <a href=".">Click here if you are not redirected.</a>
</html>f

If I did this correctly, then you should be able to click on the old Explore link and be redirected to the Relics Of The Web post.

Thanks again to Brian for doing the heavy lifting and getting me going.

Let me know if anything needs to be fixed or if this helped you with your Eleventy-built homepage on Neocities!

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Summer Days On The Beach

2024-01-10T00:00:00Z

Developed over the course of four years, this post has evolved from notes hastily penned during my peaceful moments at the bach each summer. It’s a contribution to the 32-Bit Cafe Holidays 2023 Event, delving into our precious holiday traditions.

Down here in Aotearoa, our festive season coincides with summer, marking a unique celebration of Christmas and the New Year amidst sun-drenched days. These traditions offer a different charm compared to the wintry festivities of the northern hemisphere.

For the past five summers, Onetangi Beach on Waiheke Island has been our go-to spot for the holidays. Initially a familiar place for my wife, whose childhood memories were made here, it quickly became our own tradition. Yet, as life shifted gears and little feet joined our adventures, our annual Waiheke escapades underwent a delightful transformation. Here’s a glimpse of how our summer has evolved with the arrival of our kids.

The ancient Pohutukawa tree

Then: The Relaxed Rhythm

Waking up past the alarm. Before, taking it easy was our thing. Rising lazily with the sun was part of our routine.

Tomato on toast for breakfast. Simple, carefree mornings where a basic yet satisfying breakfast was all we needed.

Lounging under an ancient Pohutukawa, lost in a book. Hours slipped by as we soaked up the summer sun, engrossed in captivating stories.

Visiting wineries, platters for lunch. The indulgence of wine tasting and leisurely lunches were our grown-up delight, we had nowhere else to be and were entertained by each others company.

Reading in peace until sleep took over. Ending the day peacefully, lost in the pages of another book until falling asleep on the couch.

Now: Embracing the Energy

Waking up at the crack of dawn. With kids, the day begins early, full of their infectious enthusiasm for the day and what it holds.

A bustling breakfast scene. Our mornings are busy with Weetbix, berries, toast, bacon, eggs and juice—fuel for day ahead.

Building sandcastles, swimming in waves. The joy of creation and laughter fills the beach, even as our castles meet their demise as the toddlers foot comes crashing down upon the helpless village.

Family time under the Pohutukawa. Hours spent playing games and enjoying shared moments under the welcoming shade from the summer sun.

Escaping for adult moments. Brief breaks for wine and beer tastings up the road, leaving the kids in trusted care for a while.

Exploring new adventures with the kids. From butterfly gardens and waterfalls to impromptu bucket baths, every moment is an adventure.

Tucking the kids in with bedtime stories. The day ends with cozy tales, wrapping up an eventful day as the kids drift into dreamland.

The Evolution of Tradition

Our summers on Waiheke have seen a shift—from serene, laid-back days to vibrant, energetic adventures with our children and family. While the landscape and activities may have changed, the essence remains: creating unforgettable memories in this beloved haven. It’s a journey we continue to embrace, cherishing both the past and the present, making each summer on Waiheke uniquely special.

What’s your experience with family traditions over the festive season or summer getaways? Let me know!

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An Easy Web

2024-01-10T00:00:00Z

Being busy with my return to work this year meant I missed most of yesterday’s discussions. While skimming through various websites and Mastodon, I couldn’t contribute until today. Yet, upon catching up on the posts and replies, a crucial point often overlooked hit me.

Simply put, I firmly believe the web and building a website should be more accessible—not just for developers, but for everyone.

This train of thought originated from Giles’s post Let’s make the indie web easier. I resonate with the idea of website ownership being an excellent avenue that we genuinely wish more individuals would embrace.

If we want the future web we’re all clamouring for, we need to give people more options for self-hosted independence. If we seriously, truly want the independent, non-enshittified personal web to flourish, we need to make it easier for people to join in.

Giles effectively highlights the need for developers to create simpler tools for personal web publishing, eliminating technical barriers. Although platforms like WordPress and static site generators exist, their installation and usage still present significant hurdles for many, especially those unfamiliar with development.

Kev’s response in Let’s Make the IndieWeb Easier echoes this sentiment:

SSGs and their ilk are simple for developers but not simple for the vast majority of people. We need tools that are simple to use, simple to manage, and simple maintain.

Kev swiftly points out that while these tools may be straightforward for developers, they present formidable challenges for others interested in the concept.

As I caught up on additional responses throughout the day from various sources, the discussion seemed primarily fixated on blogging.

This got me thinking: “What about individuals seeking to create a website that doesn’t align with traditional blogging?” Consider those who want to showcase collections, whether it’s Hardrock Cafe pint glasses, Matchbox cars, or any other passion. Platforms like WordPress, Ghost, or Bear Blog may not be the best solution.

My side project ideas aside, there’s a lot to be said for websites that don’t need to be or want to be blogs:

Showcasing Collections: Are you passionate about collecting items like Hardrock Cafe pint glasses, Matchbox cars, stamps, coins, vintage toys, or any niche hobby? A website offers a fantastic platform to proudly display and share your collection. It allows for organised galleries, descriptions, and detailed insights about each item.

Documenting Personal Journeys: Do you frequently undertake unique travels or have lived a life worth living? A personal website provides an ideal space to document and present your journeys in a structured and organised manner. Share your narratives chronologically or thematically, offering visitors an easy-to-navigate window into your stories.

Creative Expression: Engaged in creative pursuits like writing, artwork, photography, music, or other forms of artistic expression? A website can showcase your creations. Display your work in galleries, portfolios, or virtual galleries, offering visitors an immersive experience. Owning your content through a website allows you to step away from sole reliance on social media platforms. However, exposure and discoverability might be the next challenge.

Knowledge Sharing: Dive deep into a particular interest like history, vintage computers, bicycles, or even a fascination with Disneyland? A personal website is an excellent avenue to share your insights, research findings, DIY projects, or any content that goes beyond a typical blog format. It’s more than just a list of posts—it’s a comprehensive resource hub.

Family History: Are you keen on documenting family histories, genealogies, personal achievements, or preserving memories? You can create dedicated sections dedicated sections for family trees, photo albums, timelines, or personal anecdotes. It becomes an extensive archive that encapsulates your unique life story.

These examples underscore the personal aspect of websites catering to individual passions, hobbies, expressions, or documentation without focusing on business, sales, professional branding, or self-promotion. Websites offer an adaptable canvas for self-expression and sharing, going beyond the conventional structure of a blog. Sure, they could be smashed into blog format, but they would lose appeal and charm.

The emphasis lies in propelling the small, open, and independent web to greater heights by empowering a broader spectrum of people to commence their online journey. What’s indispensable here are tools that can be effortlessly set up and used by non-developers, devoid of complex coding or terminal usage. These tools should ideally be easily deployable in a self-hosted or shared hosting environment.

Enhancing the accessibility of independent web creation will enable more individuals to freely share their diverse experiences across the web. Ultimately, it’s about creating a more inclusive digital space for everyone.

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What A Weekend

2024-01-07T00:00:00Z

After two weeks up north in Auckland and on Waiheke Island for our family summer break my wife gave me the best thing I could ever ask for as a dad. A night and morning at home without the kids and dogs. She’s the best.

After family duties had been done and they were on their way over the hill for the weekend I was droppped off at my favourite brewery where I met my good friends for lunch and a few beers. The beer is good, the food is good, the company was good, what more could I ask for to kick off the day.

The sky was overcast but it was warm. We had a 3.5 km walk to the venue for Juicy Fest. The walk was easy and more time to catch up with my mates.

We picked up tickets months ago with the main draw card for us being Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. Unfortunately due to Krayzie Bone’s recent health issues the group decided it was not a good time to tour, however Bizzy Bone would represent Bone for this set of shows. I was also looking forward to The Game, but he pulled his usual bullshit of not showing, it sounds like he has trouble leaving the States.

Once inside we only had twenty minutes to wait until Bizzy Bone got on stage so we grabbed some drinks. The lines weren’t long and gave us time to chat to other people and hear who they were looking forward to seeing today.

Bizzy’s set was great, he a couple verses from early Bone classics, Crossroads, For Tha Love Of Money, Thug Luv, Notorious Thugs, and a verse from Eazy E’s Boyz N The Hood. I think the set only ended up being twenty minutes which was a bit short for my liking and I would have hoped it would be longer if the whole crew were there. Anyway, praying for Krayzie for a speedie recovery and hope the group can tour later this year.

For the rest of the gig we traversed the crowd having a chat and enjoying the rest of the show. We decided to leave a bit before T-Pain’s set was finished to beat the crowd at the end which was a good move. We had to walk a bit from the venue to get a taxi for a fair price.

It was great to get out and listen to live music again with friends and am looking forward to seeing Blink-182 in a few months when they come to the country!

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