What would possess someone to add to the collection of rants and ramblings online with yet another compendium of personal writings?

Well, there are different sorts of blogs out there, so to answer that, first we’ll consider what this one intends to be and why I’m setting about it. Frankly, there isn’t really a dire need - I have a suspicion that my ability to write prose is deteriorating as time goes by in my job, and there are not many excuses most days to put the effort to stringing together more than a sentence or two at a time. The only writing I find myself doing is deliberate and technical, mostly devoid of complete sentences, and joyless. Generally speaking, if some document I write during the day in fact does have more than one sentence in it, prudence generally compells me to evict a verb or two and turn it into a bulleted list. I read articles on the proper care and feeding of software regularly, and while the stark majority of these are really, utterly worthless (perhaps I’ll expand on that later), I still enjoy getting to participate with a piece of writing which speaks in fluent prose and deliberately has a voice - someone is reading this article, and it has been crafted to bring that reader on a journey. Who knows? Maybe soon I’ll be writing exactly the kind of tech article I despise right here!

At the moment, my real interest resides in the outdoors and nature, so I plan to write some short bits about what I observe about the living things which I’m lucky to count as neighbors - the fat black squirrels, the raven pair gracing us temporarily with its presence, and the always exciting seasonal changes that keep the outside world constantly new here.

It may happen from time to time that some piece of technology gets some time from me, as well. Usually if I do have a reason to write about some software idea, I’m loathe to do so because I’m always worried that I don’t understand it well enough to even begin to try explaining it. Lately, however, I’ve come to realize that a pretty sizable proportion of the software articles I see floating around the internet are written by people with shockingly little expertise but evidently with loads of confidence - it’s struck me as ironic that I have been turning to such people for advice my whole career. If I do write about technology, it will be with as much enthusiasm, but with less bogus authority.

That’s it for now. I’ll be back once I’ve gotten a little bit of work done on the website for ever-approaching wedding.