This thing has been running, off and on, for just about 10 years in various forms. In that time, it’s gone through two major and complete redesigns–both times even swapping out the underlying platform. But I haven’t done anything major with the site since 2009. With school being out and my free time actually somewhat existing, I’m giving thought to putting that stretch of time to bed. I’ve even tossed around changing the sites’ name and finding it a new, less obscure domain name.
When I started this site in 2006, I knew very little about web development and even less about what we’d later call blogging. And absolutely nothing about what I’d way later than that discover was branding. I just knew I wanted my own space, and something that wasn’t myfullname.com as the address for said space. It was freaking 2006, so the trend of buying up every domain name under the sun and only using one of them hadn’t entirely caught on yet. Which, escentially, meant if I’d given it considerably more thought than I had, I’d probably have snagged insertcreativenamehere.com before it went up for auction for $5000.
Now, nearly ten years later, I know slightly more about web development and may or may not have picked up a thing or two about other, related ventures along the way. Just in time to potentially make transitioning to better website 2.0 slightly challenging. Which is probably precisely why I’m considering taking part of the summer and just having at it. Which… sounds an aweful lot like something I’ve said before.
See, I get these ideas I’d like to try out every so often. So I take a snapshot of the site as it is right now, plop it somewhere useful, and hack away at it without breaking the actual production site. Then life happens, or something more involved crops up, and I’ve entirely forgotten where I was going with the idea. The server’s very likely full of projects exactly like that (note to self: clean some of those up already). Bits and pieces of older versions of the site, or code snippets I meant to incorporate and then just didn’t, scattered in amongst this or that theme I’m pulling out to test and see what sticks.
One of these days, I may even go back and look at some of those. Or start something new. And that too will probably pass. But just in case it doesn’t, at least this time I’ve got something that vaguely represents a starting point. So in 6 months when I’ve forgotten all about this post, if you happen to be looking for a name for your new website, I’ll probably have a couple suggestions…
Relatedly: Some trivia about the current website name. When I moved myself and everything I’d written to that point away from LiveJournal, and pulled the older stuff off a really old version of Movable Type and onto the WordPress system I’ve been using since, I gave the site the title of “Welcome to Nowhere”. It was meant to be a temporary name until I got around to thinking up something mildly more creative. That temporary name, needless to say, has lasted about 6 years. There is still, for those of you keeping score at home, the distinct possibility it will last 6 more. If it turns out it does, well, I tried. Now where’d I put that list of alternatives…