From: Jack Baty
To: Kev Quirk
Subject: PenPals - May 2024
Date: 02 May 2024

Hey Kev,

I've followed your previous PenPal conversations. They're great, and I have been looking forward to my turn, but now I'm just staring at a draft email and wondering where to begin.

Given what I know about you, I have a few topic ideas, so I'll start with a short list of those and maybe we can expand from there.

1. Blogging, blog platforms, social media, etc. Hooboy, this one could get out of hand, but I don't think we can avoid it. I mean, it's your fault I'm using Kirby for baty.net, so I'll need to yell at you a little about that.

2. Watches. It's also your fault that my Apple Watch is rotting on a shelf, since I keep wearing cheap Casios instead. I'll probably ask for a recommendation or two.

3. Tropical Fish. A year ago, I added the first fish (a Clown, of course) to my little 32-gallon "Biocube". It's been a struggle to get things stable and healthy and not completely covered in some form of invasive algae or critter, but I love the fish and especially, to my surprise, the coral. You've gone much further with this, so I'd love to hear about it.

4. Motorcycles. I'm afraid that motorcycles are one of the few things I've never had an interest in. The last time for me was riding dirt bikes in 1980 or so. I hope we can still be friends, anyway :).

Otherwise, today I'm toying with the idea of bringing Bear app back for notes. I need an antidote for the self-inflicted complexity I've introduced via Emacs and Obsidian recently. It's crazy-making! And of course bringing in a completely new app is the best way to reduce complexity, right? RIGHT?! 😆

Also today, my reef tank needs a water change. I've been dragging my feet on that. I try to do a 20% change every 10 days or so. I'm interested in your process around that, since you have more, and larger, tanks. My tank's numbers are ok, and the green algae has finally subsided, but now I'm fighting Aiptasia and bubble algae. It's always something.

Typing this email in Hey.com might be worth mentioning. I impulsively re-subscribed last week after canceling more than a year ago. There might be a conversation in there about using tools made by people with viewpoints (aka politics) we might strongly disagree with.

Hopefully this is enough to get things rolling. I'm really looking forward to our conversation!

Yours in perpetuity,

Jack

From: Kev Quirk
To: Jack Baty
Subject: RE: PenPals - May 2024
Date: 03 May 2024

Hey Jack,

Ooooo I’ve been looking forward to this one, as we have so much on common. Neither of us can resist the new shiny, although I’ve been pretty good since I found Kirby to be honest - nothing has come close to piquing my interest yet.

Ok, let’s do this…

Blogging
We’re gonna need more than a month on this subject alone haha. I really need to tidy up the feeds I have for you, as I have the everything feed™️ and feeds for a couple of your sites, so I tend to get duplicates.

Kirby has really satisfied me, as I have this great panel that I can use, it’s exactly how I want it, but then if I just want to fire up my text editor and write something the old school way, I can do that too. I keep meaning to setup a Shortcut that creates the folder and file structure, I’ll probably need Jarrod’s Shortcut expertise for that though.

I have been playing around with Bearblog and Scribbles though - I decided to buy a lifetime license for Scribbles, because, why not? I see you’re using Scribbles for one of your sites. Still enjoying it?

I hope Vincent adds the ability to add custom CSS at some point. That would make it really compelling for future projects for me.

Watches
I’ve curbed the watch thing recently. I’m still really enjoying them, but I’ve calmed down with the “I must buy every Casio I see” thing. I even sold a handful of them…get me!

Which Casios do you have in your collection? Happy to provide any recommendations too.

Tropical fish
I’ve never actually had a salt water aquarium. I’ve seriously considered it a few times, but I really enjoy the science behind keeping fish, so I know if I did go down that route, I’d get very addicted and it would be very expensive. It helps that my favourite fish are generally South America Cichlids, and I have my 500l (125gal) Cichlid tank in my office, so it keeps the wolf from the door in terms of wanting to go marine.

For water changes, I pump the water out of the tank and, depending on which tank water I’m changing, it either goes out the window and down a drain, or into a water butt in the garden for the flowers (they love the nitrates in the water!) Then, when it comes to filling up again, we have a hot and told tap outside in the the garden, so we run a hose from it to the various tanks.

With this system, I can do a 50% water change on the 500 in around 25-30 mins. It’s really quite easy. Having said that, I don’t need RO water like you marine tank owners do. All I need to add is dechlorinator to the tap water and I’m good to go.

Algae can be a nightmare, especially on newer tanks (< 1yr old) I find that parameters tend to be all over the place for a while, but everything equalises eventually. If I ever get an algae bloom, I stop feeding the tank, turn the lights out and cover it up from all light for a week. That usually kills it off. If it doesn’t, I give the fish a little feed to keep them happy, pull out what I can, and repeat the process.

Motorbikes
We’re coming back into biking season, and I’ve managed to get out a few times already. I do love this time of year. Never had a dirt bike, but my wife got me a dirt bike experience last Christmas (haven’t used it yet), so one might be on the horizon for me, depending on how much I enjoy it.

I had a Bear subscription for a while there. It’s nice, and I like that I could use Markdown, but it didn’t really offer me anything over Apple Notes. I know it can do a lot more, but I tend not to use any of those fancy shmancy features, so they’re generally wasted on me. What’s pulling you back to Bear?

Now Hey on the other, I’ve never understood. I just don’t get it. To me, email was never broken. I actually really like email. Stuff comes in, I deal with it, and I archive it. I don’t need to automagically filtered to different inboxes for me. I tried it when it was first release and I found it really confusing, and pointless.

Here’s what I wrote about Hey - kevquirk.com/email-is-not-broken (it was a few years ago and I can’t remember what I wrote, but I do remember I didn’t like it).

So this begs the question, why did you go with Hey?

Jeez, I think this is one of the longest emails I’ve ever sent - looking forward to how this conversation develops.

Best,

Kev

From: Jack Baty
To: Kev Quirk
Subject: RE: PenPals - May 2024
Date: 07 May 2024

Kev,

My dream is to have just one blog and one note-taking tool. Realistically, I know this will never happen, but Kirby has done a good job of making me feel like it's possible. As much as I love a nice, fully static website, there's a lot to like about having a bit of PHP at one's disposal when needed. I have to admit, though, that although Kirby's Blueprints are cool and powerful, I struggle with them almost as much as I used to struggle with templating in Hugo. Almost :). But some simple PHP in Kirby templates is a breath of fresh air, otherwise. Oh, and I just used the RSS template you sent me a while back. Works like a charm, so thanks for that! I'm about to try tackling setting up a movie review blueprint and template. I already did that in my Tinderbox blog, but I think it will be easier to use in Kirby.

Tinderbox is awesome, though. I wish more people were willing to spend the money on it. It's one of those odd bits of software developed by one guy over nearly 30 years. Still going strong, with updates maybe twice a month (on the beta channel). It's just so powerful and it's like nothing else.

I also paid for a lifetime Scribbles account. I'm a sucker for brushing my hands together and saying, "There, that's that, then." Scribbles is a nice and simple blogging platform, and Vincent has good instincts and is super friendly and supportive. I'm not sure Scribbles is right for me, long-term, though. It doesn't yet hit that "just enough features, but not too many" balance. In an email, he told me that custom CSS was something he's planning, which would help. I'd also get rid of the cute animations if I could. But a forever license with as many potential blogs as I want will probably come in handy, knowing me.

I have mixed feeling about not making offers on the watches you sold, but I would like to avoid becoming a collector. I have two G-Shocks. The one I wear most is a GW-M5610 (I had to look that up on the back 😆). My favorite thing with that one is that when the time changed, the watch updated automatically. I didn't know it could do that! The other is a GA-2100 "CasiOak". It looks cool, but I never wear it because I have the one with light on dark panels and I can't read them at all in daylight. I'd love to trade if for a "normal" one. I also have a couple of adorable F-91Ws, but I rarely wear them. I'm not a fan of giant watches, but the F-91s are so tiny as to feel almost dainty, which is not what I'm going for. The downside to the G-Shocks is that I feel like the buttons were designed for wearing on the left wrist. I'm a lefty and the recessed (or "protected" maybe) buttons (Light, for example) require some contortions in order to operate. Otherwise, I dig them, and they're a nice reprieve from the Apple Watch.

For some reason I thought you had at least one reef tank. I used to have freshwater tanks and always wanted to try salt water, so I got the little "biocube" and it's been a blast. I had no idea how much I would enjoy keeping coral. It's beautiful and cool. The other big surprise has been the cleaner shrimp and sea urchin. Just amazing critters to watch. The shrimp died a while ago but I'd love another. It used to crawl around cleaning my hand whenever I had my hand in the tank. Super fun. But yeah, the chemistry is a bit fussy. I have kits for checking parameters, which I use maybe once a month. One day I'd like a bigger tank so I can get some tangs and other cool fish that wouldn't do well in a small tank.

You mentioned that I mentioned Bear app. I keep trying it. It feels so good at first. Then I remember that I'm more a Folder Guy and a tag-only workflow rubs me wrong eventually. And like you, I don't feel it offers enough over Apple Notes to live there. I'm still trying to avoid Obsidian, only somewhat successfully. If I'd never used Emacs, Obsidian would be The Right Answer. But I've used Emacs, so.

Hey email, IMO, nails a particular workflow. It's not so much the auto-filtering. The blacklist-by-default approach is handy, and I like the "set aside" and "reply later" options. I also like being able to rename a thread (without others seeing it). But you're right, a lot of this can be mimicked in "normal" email apps. And I don't love that it's not normal IMAP, so I must use the Hey UI/app. That's what the mbox export is for, I guess. It's fun to use Hey for a bit, but like everything, it can become tedious feeling "trapped" in it, so I drift after a while.

Well, that was more words than I'd planned. Your turn! :).

Jack

From: Kev Quirk
To: Jack Baty
Subject: RE: PenPals - May 2024
Date: 10 May 2024

Hey Jack,

I’ve thought about adding a notes / microblog / whatever to my Kirby site. Especially with services like EchoFeed, it would be so easy to dump them over in Mastodon. But without something like IndieWeb gubbins, there would be no replies, likes etc. all that would happen on Masto. Which then begs the question, why not just post there in the first place? But then again, I like the idea of having a record of all my short thoughts. See, this me flip-flopping in real time haha.

Blueprints can take some getting used to, but they’re soooo good once you do. I have a book review template if you want the source code for that? I imagine it would be easily adapted to movies. Here’s what it looks like at the back end:

At the front end, they look like this. If it’s of use, I’ve attached all the bits relevant to my “books system”.

I’ve never actually used TinderBox. I’ve heard of it, but never played with it. Looking at the site, it seems very expensive for what it is though.

Yeah, I’ll likely never use Scribbles for my site, but with lifetime account, I might use it for side projects. Especially if Vincent adds custom CSS. If nothing else though, I think it’s good to support indie devs with our wallets, so either way it’s money well spent IMO.

The 5610 is the best G-Shock IMO. I have one myself, and it’s the one I use to set all my others by. One annoying thing about having 50 watches is that whichever watch I decide to wear for the day usually needs the time settings. Still, it’s a fun little part of my morning routine.

I’m not a fan of negative LCD displays, either. I try to avoid them where possible. Generally speaking though, I think the CasioOaks have very little contrast on them between the hands and the face, which really annoys me. I do have one, but it’s a special edition one with a white dial and a blue strap. Most importantly, the contrast is good.

Tangs are beautiful fish, but they need a larger tank, I believe. I’m just watching my tank as type this - my pair of electric blue acaras are getting ready to spawn, so they’re frantically protecting their little nest (the side of a log). Their eggs will inevitably be eaten (probably by the parents), but it’s interesting watching the whole thing unfold.

I read last night you decided to stop using Hey again. I assume that’s down to that “trapped” feeling you mentioned? Did you send the last email from Hey? Because weirdly, when I hit the reply button, your email was nested inside three details elements:

I’ve not seen that before, so assumed it was some weirdness Hey does with emails. I’m probably wrong though.

Until next time,

Kev

From: Jack Baty
To: Kev Quirk
Subject: RE: PenPals - May 2024
Date: 15 May 2024

Kev,

Sorry about the formatting of that last reply. Not sure what was going on there. Let's blame it on Hey, shall we? :) (I'm typing this in MailMate, which I've reinstalled after a couple of years away. Let me know if it happens again).

Thanks so much for sending me your blueprint for Kirby book reviews. I spent a couple hours modifying your templates to suit movie reviews and my site's layout. However, I sort of gave up in the middle of it. I lost the energy for re-learning how all the Kirby bits fit together. It's not Kirby's fault. Kirby is great at this kind of stuff. It was more just me not feeling like futzing with it. I got this far: https://baty.net/movies/high-fidelity-2000

I was so not into futzing with Kirby yesterday that I posted on my baty.blog site instead. It uses Blot.im and I love Blot for its easy and simplicity. I realize Kirby is also mostly just a bunch of text files, but they're weird text files, compared to the more common YAML-front-matter stuff in Blot/Hugo/etc. I know I could blog with Kirby by editing the content files directly, but I never do that for some reason. Probably because Kirby's panel is too good, and kind of the whole point.

This morning I posted to my Tinderbox-managed daily.baty.net blog again, too. Using Tinderbox for blogging is unusual and not the simplest path, but I really dig Tinderbox and I've got it working exactly how I like a blog to work. The HTML/CSS for the site is a terrible mix of ancient and modern techniques long with copy/paste development practices, but it works for me and I kind of like how it looks.

Anyway, it seems I'm still posting to three blogs and probably always will, despite my dreams of having One True Blog™. I just feel bad that I'm making things so difficult for anyone wishing to follow along. I've started using Robb Knight's EchoFeed service, and I'm cross-posting everything to a new Mastodon feed at https://mastodon.social/@batybot. For masochists only 😄.

You, and a few others, have written about your dream CMS. It might be a good exercise for me to try defining mine. Maybe it would help me choose something and stick with it. Yeah right. ¯(ツ)/¯.

That's enough about blogging, jeez.

Your Computing History post (https://kevquirk.com/my-computing-history) has me wanting to dig through memories and reconstruct my own. I remember that my very first "computer" was a Radio Shack TRS-80 Pocket Computer from 1980. I still have it in a box, somewhere. Ah, the days of typing in BASIC programs from the backs of magazines! And there was a whopping 1.5K of RAM to work with.

I'm also currently on a Mac. Have been, on and off, since using an original Macintosh Plus in the mid-80s. Part of me wants to be the guy doing everything on an ancient ThinkPad running Linux but I just don't see that happening. I've tried it and it was cool, but I also found it to be death by 1,000 cuts.

Lately, I have been thinking about how I'd like to spend much more of my time away from computers completely. I have no idea how to actually do that, though. Sitting here reading my feeds and randomly clicking things on the internet is so easy and occasionally inspiring and fun. But mostly it's just wasting time looking for entertainment. I'd rather be reading or making photographs in the darkroom or writing in my (paper) journals. It doesn't matter how many articles or books I read about getting myself offline, I still sit here for many hours every day.

So with that, I'm going to sign off and go make some prints in the darkroom.

What are you up to since last we talked? :)

Jack

From: Kev Quirk
To: Jack Baty
Subject: RE: PenPals - May 2024
Date: 16 May 2024

Hey Jack,

I’ve heard of MailMate, but never used it. There’s no screenshots (that I could find) of the app on the website, which is a bit of a miss IMO. If I don’t know what a too looks like, I’m not gonna drop any money on it. I’m quite happy with Mac Mail to be fair though. It works well enough for my needs.

I get how Kirby can be confusing if you’re not hacking on things regularly. I’m always messing around and adding little features, so I’m starting to become accustom to how it all plugs together. The Books thing is quite a complicated blueprint, so I can see why it would be confusing. I’m sure your mojo will return to play with it. If it does, and you get stuck, feel free to hit me up and I’ll try to help where I can.

When I’ve hut brick walls, I’ve actually found ChatGPT to be very helpful. It’s really good at coming up with code that’s 99% correct that I can then work through the problem with. A couple times it’s been 100% right, first time.

Agree on the text editing side of Kirby. The format is…weird. I’m yet to actually use the text editor to any great degree for producing content.

If you’re happy running 3 blogs, and find it enjoyable, what’s the problem? Variety is the spice of life, and all that. You have the main feed where everything dumps to, so it’s all good. You do you. I do think writing about what your perfect CMS would look like would be very interesting from you.

That TRS-80 looks cool. When I was a kid, I always wanted something like that, but they were obviously too expensive for a kid. By the time I was old enough to warrant a computer, it was all about Amigas et al.

Totally agree on the ThinkPad+Linux thing. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. I left Linux a few years ago now, because it was just too painful. Nothing major was broken, but like you said - death by 1000 cuts. My still uses my old ThinkPad, but it’s running Win10.

I’m very happy with Mac. Sure, they’re not cheap, but they generally work really well and there’s not of the bloat/advertising rubbish that plagues Windows.

Funny, I’ve been thinking about how I can disconnect too. I’m finding myself pulling my phone out when I’m at home and sat still. I’m considering getting a dumb phone to use for the odd day here and there. People can call me on it if they need me, and my iPhone can sit at home collecting the messages on messaging apps etc.

The only thing holding me back is the lack of Music, podcasts & audiobooks. But I suppose that’s kinda the point. Then there’s the whole extra SIM, or swapping my existing SIM. At this point it becomes far too much hassle and I might as well just carry my iPhone and be more disciplined with myself. Easier said than done, though.

Tech aside, I’ve been so busy lately. Work has been crazy, we’ve had a lot going on at home, and everything has started growing again outside, so it all needs maintaining. The last part I enjoy, but when it’s at the tail end of a stressful, it’s a lot to manage, you know?

My wife’s starting to notice that I’m stressed because I’m grumpy at home. I need to try and snap myself out of it. Again, easier said than done though.

I’ve always been fascinated by the process of developing film. I don’t understand how dipping a piece of paper in a few chemicals can get you from negative to photo. I just don’t understand it, at all haha. I used to work in a photo developers part time during one summer when I was in college. It was fun, but it was all done in a self-contained machine. You’ve load the reel of negatives in, load up the appropriate sized paper, and the photos would come out the other end.

Ever the annoying little shit, if there were ever any rude photos, I’d put them right at the front of the pile, so when the assistant opened the photos to the customer to say “these ones are yours?” they’d be greeted with a not-so-public image. Yep, I’ve always been a dick head. :)

How did you end up getting into photography?

Best,

Kev

From: Jack Baty
To: Kev Quirk
Subject: RE: PenPals - May 2024
Date: 22 May 2024

Kev!

I've taken longer than intended to reply, sorry.

Since my last message I've continued to waffle about Kirby (naturally). I ended up finishing my Movies templates, thanks to your guidance, but now I don't feel much like adding movies. I don't really want my blog to turn into a data entry job, ya know? Still, I'm all-in Kirby this week. I hope it lasts a while, because I'm sick of thinking about it. I just want to post stuff. The trick is to just write and leave the Kirby guts alone for now. Wish me luck :).

You mentioned ChatGPT and I felt triggered :). Not because of the mention, but because I'm so conflicted about the whole AI thing. Yesterday I installed the new Lightroom with "Generative Remove" and it reminded me of how I feel about ChatGPT: I kind of hate that it exists, but there's no way I'm not going to use it myself. It's a tricky topic to discuss, because it seems one is only allowed to either rail against it or claim that it's going to save the world. I see very little nuance in the online discourse, so I've tried to avoid talking about it at all.

To follow up on our watch conversation and maybe tie it in to disconnecting...I've been wearing the Apple Watch again. Gasp! The Apple Watch is one piece of tech that actually helps lower my use of other pieces of tech; namely the iPhone. When I wear the Watch, I can leave my iPhone in a different room without feeling twitchy about missing something important (like my daughter sending pics of my grandson 😄). The key is to disable almost all notifications. The best thing is that since the phone is way over there, I don't instinctively grab it every 30 seconds while I'm reading or writing or whatever. I feel guilty letting my other watches collect dust, but it may actually be a net positive. I still wear the "real" watches when going out to dinner or working in the yard. Your recent addition of a watch log to your blog is cool! I don't have the energy (or the watch collection) to do something like that, but I really admire yours.

Building a darkroom is a great way to force oneself to stay away from the phone 😁. I absolutely love everything about shooting, developing, and printing film (except the parts that suck. You'll notice I didn't mention scanning). Film photography is tactile, 100% analog, and the darkroom is such a magical, meditative experience.

My photography hobby started in 1982 when my parents got me a real camera, the Canon AE-1 Program, as a high-school graduation gift. I still have one around here somewhere, although it's not my original copy, sadly. Unfortunately, I discovered booze and girls shortly after that, so photography took a back seat until the late 1990s. I jumped on the digital bandwagon real early, but then got back into film around 2004. I oscillate between film and digital, but lately I'm super into film. There's something wonderful about having a physical negative that was chemically created by the light reflected from the original subject. Plus, it just looks better to me. Not technically better, but...just better somehow.

I love how you used to put the rude photos in the front of the stack as a sort of figurative (and possibly literal!) booby trap for customers. I probably would have done the same thing!

I hope you find a way to feel less stressed. If your wife has noticed, that says something.

Taking care of your fish seems like it would be a nice way to relax. What do you normally do as stress relief or as a counterpoint to a stressful day?

Jack

From: Kev Quirk
To: Jack Baty
Subject: RE: PenPals - May 2024
Date: 24 May 2024

Hey Jack,

I think as technically enthusiastic people, we’re always gonna want to fiddle. A few years back, when flipping from one platform to another for my site (and invariably writing about said change) I’d always try to dress it up as me needing to do it because of fake reason X, Y, or Z. Fact is, I just liked to fiddle with it and the new shiny had me intrigued. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

So use Scribbles, or Kirby, or Tinderbox, or, or a combination of all of them. What matters, I think, is that we have fun in these hobbies. I personally go through peaks and troughs of fiddling vs writing. At the moment I’m in a fiddling peak. As you said, I added the watch log, and I’ve also added a notes page. So I’m experimenting with posting notes on my site and having them syndicate to socials.

I like the idea of having a record of my passing thoughts on my site, but I’m not sure if it will stick, as it’s more convoluted to write a “note” on Kirby than it is to write a post on Mastodon. Not much more convoluted, to be honest, but there’s a couple more steps involved that I need to work around if I’m gonna make it stick.

Honestly, I’m utterly sick of hearing about. The dichotomy you mention between it being a nightmare vs the best thing ever is just exacerbating. I also dislike how everything needs to have AI baked in right now. I think that will die down with time and, IMO, I think “AI” will just become the next iteration of search engines. We’ll have our baked-in-to-all-the-things personal assistant that we ask questions to, instead of an input field on a website like Google or DDG.

Quite sad, really as it will mean another level of ambiguity from the good old internet of old where you could explore. I’m sure it will bring new and “fascinating" ways to track us to within an inch of our lives so that even “better” ads can be served up to us.

Winning!

I found the opposite when I wore my Apple watch. I ended up checking for notifications all the time, instead of picking up my phone. Which was just as rude of me. These days, I switch off all notifications on my phone, except for phone calls. I have the red blobs, but I don’t have any banner notifications. This kinda works, but I still pick my phone up and play with it too much. Well, I think I do at least. This week I was talking to one of my team in the office, and she commented on my phone (an iPhone 13 Mini), asking about the battery and how it’s supposed to be crap.

I said it was fine and will easily last all day. This got us into a conversation about our usage. She’s much younger than me, and so we compared out screen time (first time I’ve actually ever used it!) and mine was around 1.5hrs a day, whereas hers was nearly 7hrs, which is actually below the norm for them there kids, apparently. 😳

So the conclusion was that the battery probably is crap on my little phone, but I don’t use it often, so it’s doesn’t affect me. 🤷‍♂️ It was reassuring to know that what I consider too much use is way below “the norm”.

Girls and beer is what ended my boxing career, too. Funny how that works, ey? 😂

I don’t actually have 1 go-to thing that I do to de-stress. I probably should, but I don’t. Usually doing something analogue is what helps me though. So I’ll go to the garage and work on my bikes, or do some DIY jobs. I’ve recently setup a little home gym in the garage and I’m really enjoying that.

I’ve realised that I can often come home brain tired, but not body tired. So I’m trying to do more physical things in my spare time to get more of a balance, instead of parking my arse in front of the TV once the kids are in bed. It seems to be working so far.

The fish do give me a tonne of enjoyment though. I’m sat in my office while I write this, and my tank is just over my shoulder. They’ve distracted me many times already while typing this email, especially since the lights are just starting to come on:

As a ahem man of a “certain age” ahem do you have any pearls of wisdom for managing all the various stresses life throws at us? Do you still get stressed? You strike me as a guy who has a “zero fucks” attitude to that kinda thing? Not as in you don’t give a fuck about people being stressed, but that you don’t let it bother you. 🤷‍♂️

Best,

Kev

From: Jack Baty
To: Kev Quirk
Subject: RE: PenPals - May 2024
Date: 28 May 2024

Kev,

It never ends. I think you noticed that I'd pulled the plug on Kirby and moved everything into a hosted Ghost(Pro) account for baty.net. No more fiddling, hurray! That was yesterday. Today, I've spent time cleaning and updating the Kirby templates and blueprints. I'm moments away from changing the DNS and I'll be back on Kirby.

As much as I'd like to stop tweaking and thinking about hosting, etc., I don't think I'll ever be able to give up the control. I need to feel that my site is mine, ya know?

Every time I try the "easier" way of doing anything, I always end up back doing it the hard way. The hard way is usually better. It's like you said, what matters is that we have fun with it. Futzing is fun. Or at least it's fun more often than it's not.

I'd encourage you to keep the "notes" on your site. One of the useful things I've done with them on my sites is to give myself an option whether each note is syndicated or not. Sometimes I feel like writing something, but I don't want it "out there". The few people crazy enough to regularly visit my site can read it, but mostly it's just for me. Seems crazy, but I love it.

With the many complex, weirdly-convoluted systems I have for taking notes, it's amazing how often I end up finding what I was looking for by searching one of my blogs. That's another reason I like keeping the "Daily Notes" out there. ¯(ツ)/¯

I wish I had better advice about de-stressing. Honestly, I think the thing that has done my brain the most good has been regular meditation. I don't even do it that much, maybe 10 or 20 minutes 5 days each week. I use the Sam Harris "Waking Up" app, since I'm grandfathered in for free. I like his approach. He's smart and is really big into how meditation can affect the brain beyond the typical "feel better" platitudes. It's all just mindfulness and learning to observe thoughts without judgement. I really like the metta ("Loving Kindness") focus, too. At first it seemed corny, but it's been great at fostering empathy. I believe that a lack of empathy is the root of many of the world's problems, so the more, the better, starting with me.

It's not that I have zero fucks to give. It's more that my default approach is, "It's not a problem until it's a problem." I try, anyway. A favorite quote from Thom Wong:

"Behold! The field in which I grow my fucks. Lay thine eyes upon it and though shalt see that it is barren." 😄

Until next time,

Jack

From: Kev Quirk
To: Jack Baty
Subject: RE: PenPals - May 2024
Date: 29 May 2024

Hey Jack,

I’ve been looking forward to this email, knowing that the Ghost conversation was coming. :)

I really like Ghost, I was actually a backer on their Kickstarter back in the day, but as you’ve mentioned elsewhere, I dislike the direction they’ve taken around monetisation. I get that monetisation is very important to some people, but I’d argue the majority of Ghost’s users probably don’t monetise. For those, it would be nice to have a simple rocker switch that turns all that off and allows Ghost toe simply be a really great blogging CMS. I think their editor is the best out there.

Agree on futzing around - since doing the notes thing (which is starting to become muscle memory and more fun, so I think it’s probably gonna stay) I’ve improved the Watch Picker a bit so the watch I pick persists on the page so that people can see the watch I’m wearing that day. I’m so proud of this little system and I had a lot of fun implementing it.

One thing I missed from WordPress was the “Edit” link that appears on the front end when you’re logged in. I actually used that quite a lot, as I spend time on the front end, it’s nice to be able to click a link and be taken to the edit screen on the panel for that post/note. So, I added that too.

I wouldn’t have been able to do either of these things had I been used a managed service. So, yeah, like you, the futzing around and having fun with it is very important to me, as is the control. It’s what makes it feel truly mine, yanno?

I just checked and it looks like you’re still on Ghost. Are you still considering a flip back to Kirby?

You know, I’ve never actually tried meditation. We get the Headspace app for free through work, so I really should install it and give it a try. Ignoring the problem clearly isn’t working. Definition of madness and all that; I really should try something different.

I also love that saying. I actually used to have it as the banner image on my socials:

So we’re at the end of the month now; I’m actually on vacation for a few days after today, so won’t be online. So that means this is probably the last email exchange I’ll publish. I’ve really enjoyed our chat though, Jack. Thanks so much for being a part of the experiment - it’s been great so far and there’s still a number of people I continue to email regularly as a result of this, so that’s a win.

Thanks again,

Kev

From: Jack Baty
To: Kev Quirk
Subject: RE: PenPals - May 2024
Date: 29 May 2024

Hey Kev,

I flipped back to Kirby for about 20 minutes this morning, realized I'd broken something, so reverted to Ghost for now. It's an adventure! :). I'll keep you posted. There's so much I like about both options that I'm basically unable to make a decision. As usual.

Thanks for letting me participate in the PenPal series. It's been a blast!

Enjoy your vacation, and stay in touch!

Jack