Blog Hosting Platform

I’ve been working on my blog workflow recently. I’ve have used Ghost as my blogging platform for a few years. At $5 per month, it is hard to beat the value of the service. However, my needs are fairly simple when it comes to blogging, so I wanted to get back to the basics. I decided to switch to a static site generator because I’m simply not using any of the advanced features of Ghost.

TL;DR

The curse of knowledge happens far more than we realize. Effective communication is not just about conveying information but also about ensuring that your message is well-received and understood. By working to establish a shared understanding, a common context, and a consistent frame of reference, we can avoid confusion and foster a deeper connection with our audience. Let’s strive to communicate effectively and make a positive impact in our interactions with others.

TL;DR

This post is a bit about my background and what I envision for my blog going forward. I need to update my blog more frequently. An 8-year gap between posts is really long!

It’s been a while since my last post

I am updating my blog, one more time. I failed to achieve my objective in my previous blog post, Being More Active, which I wrote in 2016. That blog post was written three years after my last blog post in 2013. I suppose if we were to look at the posting gaps from a breaking personal records perspective, going from a three-year writing gap to an eight-year gap might be quite the record. I really should do better.

It would seem that I’ve allowed this blog to become inactive. It’s been three years since my last post. To be honest, I was never much of a blogger so I’m not surprised this site has languished.

Going forward, I plan to write more frequently and expand the content to include more technology-related posts, particularly tutorials. As a Solutions Engineer at Hortonworks, I find plenty of opportunities to generate useful content based on my daily work.

I had an opportunity to take a short trip to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, Virginia.  I’ve always wanted to go, and this was my first trip.  Regarding theme parks, they weren’t very different from Kings Dominion or Hershey Park.  My family and I had a good time.

One of the attractions that most interested me was the Animal Ambassadors.  I’m not aware of other theme parks offering something similar.  They have an up-close tour, during which you pay to get behind-the-scenes exposure to the animals.  I was most excited about the Wolf tour, but my timing was horrible, and I missed it.  I was able to see some other very cool animals you don’t see every day.  Naturally, I went with a camera in hand!

This is my cat, Simba.  He’s getting old these days, but he’s just as active as my other two, much younger, cats.  This is an older photo I took of him in 2010.  I did a little post-processing of the shot in Lightroom and cropped the image.

Overall, I’m happy with how this turned out:

Simba

You can find this photo and others on Flickr Jaraxal’s Flickr Photostream - Cats.

I don’t always get an opportunity to review my photos right away. Distractions will arise, and photo reviews sometimes get lost in the shuffle. Periodically, I find myself going through my Lightroom catalogs and looking for interesting photos. Sometimes, I’ll find an interesting shot that I never got around to reviewing. I found this Praying Mantis on my front porch and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get a few photos.

My family and I traveled to the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore in July 2011.  We had a great time, and I’m considering making it one of our annual summer excursions.

I was able to grab a decent set of photos during my visit.  I’m particularly fond of this one:

Dexter Cattle (Bos taurus)

You can see the rest of my trip photos here: Jaraxal’s Flickr Photostream - Maryland Zoo in Baltimore.

A few weeks ago, I posted that I would experiment with using Tumblr as my blogging platform.  I used Tumblr over the last few weeks.  I think it worked alright, but the workflow didn’t work quite right.  Trying to get posts to look the way I wanted was a bit too onerous.  When I post a photo, I usually want to provide some minimal background or support description.  I liked how Tumblr presented photos using the “Photo” post type.  But that format doesn’t support much in the way of descriptive text.  That forces me to use the “Text” post type and embed the photo.  These post types have different behaviors regarding options and the look and feel of the posts.

I decided to take a day trip to the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Church Creek, MD.  I had never been there before, but I heard there were photo opportunities to be had.  The trip is about 2.5 hours from my house, so 5 hours total travel time.  I was only there for about an hour, but it was worth it.

Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center · 2145 Key Wallace Dr, Church Creek, MD 21622