Back in the prehistoric days of the internet, I had a website through Geocities that had a couple of links on it and it had a yellow background and I thought it was very cool. I was excited to be learning HTML and thought <blink> tags were the height of sophistication.
Since then, this site has been through more iterations than I can possibly begin to count, mostly because I never really kept any records, though recently when cleaning off an old external hard drive I did come across some old site banners. I have included a series of them from a time I think the site banner refreshed every time you refreshed the page because I was just so cool and clever or something. I had to blow them up a bit because everything I had saved for my website from olden times was designed for an 800×600 screen, and your smartphone has a higher resolution than the monitor I was using back then.
I used to redesign my website as often as some people change hair colors. (I also found several graphics and websites I designed back when I was going to be a designer when I grew up.) Anyway website redesigns were, I suppose, something of a hobby for awhile. This particular design was orange on a white screen and I don’t know why none of the taglines had anything to do with creamsicles or Orange Julius.
I didn’t keep up with any of the things I learned back in the day and now I couldn’t design a template from scratch if my life depended on it, and it’s a good thing my life will likely never depend on it. All of this to say that I think I might be done fussing with my website for now.
I have added a few galleries: Albion, Michigan, and Further Afield. I’m experimenting with selling prints from here; rather I will be experimenting with selling prints from here early next year. I need to get a few things figured out on my side first. I’m not planning on having a large commercial print selling business, and I am in general not into trying to turn my hobbies into a job, but I like to share, and it’s always cool to know someone has something I created at their house.
I may add more in the future but I’m going to try my best not to do the ADHD thing where I overcommit to a project and then run out of steam because I decided it had to be A+ #1 and instead I’m just kinda gonna roll with it and see how it goes.
Speaking of photos, the header image I chose to go with this post is a photo of the moon I took one June night many years ago and I have always loved it because to me looking at it feels like looking at the moon some humid summer night when the clouds are zipping by and you are probably alone and maybe or maybe not lonely. There are only two kinds of photos of the moon, I think — the ones that are about being technically perfect and the ones that are about looking at the moon.
Well, there’s a third kind, the kind taken with a phone camera, where the moon becomes a white blob of light and you just really have to appreciate her mystery, because she’s not posing for you.
I do think I am the only person who likes this photo, anyway, but I don’t just like it, I love it.
One tiny photograph I found while going through the gajillions of files on that external hard drive was this of me and Stacy, who will have been gone, good lord, is it 20 years next weekend?
The EXIF data on the file says it was taken on January 18, 2005 at 7:36 PM. I wish I could remember what was happening here and I can’t and that bugs me; were we celebrating her birthday late? Looks like we were at her favorite place, maybe, though I don’t see a mint chip or fajitas so who can say. She would be gone before that year was over, and nobody saw it coming. Tell everyone you love that you love them when you get the chance and if you don’t get the chance make the chance. You’ll thank yourself later.
Miss you, Stace.
The hard drive was from 2009-2010 or so, and it has stuff on it dating back to the early aughts, and it was a whole different life back then, though it’s been interesting going through my own archives. One thing I think about a lot, is one of my kids routinely deletes all her photos off of Instagram which is her right and is that a thing now? That people don’t keep their personal archives anymore? I mean there’s something to be said for not having to look back at how stupid you looked circa 25 years ago when you had that unfortunate haircut or whatever, but how will you ever be reminded of the things that were, at the time, too good to miss?
Even though the internet is forever, I do wonder about how historians in the future will ever be able to study us because we don’t write anything down or print anything. Though maybe there won’t be historians in the future because we’ll all be underwater or some billionaires will have decided to nuke us for fun or something. Can’t say. But I hope we make it and we can still look back on ourselves laughing like idiots while wearing birthday hats.
One thing that’s true is I can look at this photo and hear Stacy’s giggle.
Anyway, hi. Happy holidays. (I can’t guarantee I’ll update again before they’re over, because that’s what I’m like these days.) Hope you’re reading a good book and that you have exciting plans to look forward to and if you are and you do, what is it and where are you going?
2 responses to “a few things”
It’s nice to see you writing again and I must admit to loving the ‘enriched with calcium’ subhead because it really does put a point on your sense of humor. Have you noticed time speeding up? Funny how that happens. I just think that the one thing I wish we all had more of was time.
everything you said about websites—i feel the same way. i still have a ton of my old header images somewhere and i loved changing my blog/site as i learned new things. it was fun and frustrating and now everything is an app or a widget or something. i miss that age of the internet.