A new home for the blog

responsive-design

There’s been another crazy long gap on the blog (nearly four months; might be a record in this iteration), which is a sure sign that I’ve been busy. But the blog had to get updated, or at least relocated, recently when the host I was keeping it on the past few years was scheduled to be shut down. As such, I had to get things into action to get the site moved in time.

Thanks to my job I’ve become quite familiar with some WordPress-focused web hosts now, and decided to go with WP Engine, which I’ve heard great things about for years. If you’re seeing this post, you’ve followed me over!

I’m confident enough working with WordPress that I could have moved the site without difficulty to just about any host, but I really liked the WP-centric offerings of WP Engine, and their migration tools, which I used just to become familiar with them, were ultra-smooth and very useful. I was able to get my site up and running pretty quickly, and the site feels faster than ever, which is pretty cool.

They help keep the site’s security up to date, protect against certain issues, create and offer the ability to grab a back-up of the site if something goes wrong, and ultimately will help me manage the site in certain ways so I can focus on what I want to do most with the site – write and share.

I can’t promise regular updates will be back just yet, although I have a TON of drafts that have built up, some of it probably too old to actually post, although I may anyway for the heck of it, but I hope to get into a rhythm here again soon enough.

Re-kindling an interest in reading

kindle-2009

I was a relatively early adopter of the Kindle, thanks to a birthday gift of the Kindle 2 in 2009. It has been a transformative device for me; I’ve read more since I got the Kindle than I had previously, and I pretty much read every day with it.

Sadly, the Kindle 2, which had been in service for so long, has recently decided it had enough. My screen effectively began to divide in two and reading on it became nearly impossible. The time had come to replace it. Continue reading

Puzzling over a decision

american-crossword-puzzle-tournament

This weekend’s going to be a quiet one for me, but it didn’t have to be. For most of the winter I pondered over the thought of participating in the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament this year, led by New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz (who also has a pair of excellent magazine titles available through Penny Press). Those who read the blog have seen my previous posts about how I love solving puzzle books, and this would be a fun extension of that hobby. I didn’t even have travel as an excuse: The event is taking place this weekend at the Stamford Marriott. I walked by it on my way home from the train station last night. I could have easily been there right now. Continue reading

Day one: Virginia Beach, a taste of Busch Gardens

virginia-beach

As mentioned in yesterday’s post, we were to get going at 3 a.m. It was about 4:30 before my father arrived at my apartment, but no matter; the trip was smooth and uneventful, and we made it to Virginia quickly enough. Continue reading

My vacation will dominate this week

loch-ness-monster

Starting at 3 a.m. today (this post is set for 9:30, so technically we’re on the road now), my family and I will be heading out on the road for a trip to Virginia first, and then, Massachusetts. We’re planning on spending five days in Virginia, seeing Williamsburg (and particularly, Virginia Beach), our old neighborhoods in Hampton and Poquoson, Virginia Beach, and hopefully a Norfolk Tides game in there as well. Then we’ll head to Massachusetts, first to see my grandmother on her birthday, and then to spend a couple of nights on Cape Code in Hyannis and head over to Nantucket for a day.

There’ll be some quieter days than others, but I hope to offer a fun account and thoughts about this year’s trip as a way to break up the blog (and give me something to write about while I’m gone). Let me know what you think in the comments!

Enjoying when the seasons change

change-jar

It’s a habit established thanks to family, and one that I’ve maintained for some time now; in fact, I blogged about it five years ago: My efforts to save my loose change and set it aside for a rainy day. It came back into mind recently, when I found an identical replacement for my original change jar, above, which I managed to misplace after turning in change awhile back. Continue reading

Programming note: Fundraising season

This is traditionally a busy time of year for me; this year, through calendar shifts, two fundraisers that I support happened back to back weekends.  This post is going up retroactively to mark time, as this was the first break in the posting schedule in months and I want a fighting chance of rebounding, but this weekend was the Imperial Sovereign Court of All Connecticut‘s Coronation, and the following weekend is the New Haven Pride Center‘s Dorothy Awards.

I’ll do my best to keep posting up through the duration, but a gap may be inevitable until after March 1.