Refresh

Caffeine has always worked wonders for me.

I vividly remember how lazy Saturday mornings were over ten years ago. No kids, no distractions, just some nice me time. I would idly enjoy a large cup of coffee, maybe two, and get dispatched on a creative spree writing, doodling, ideating.

(Before embarking on computer science I was actually contemplating on becoming a visual designer, but that’s another story…)

With years of steady coffee intake I’ve developed a baseline tolerance. Yet, it makes me smile that a large enough dose is still able to get me sent in sort of a creative frenzy.

Here I am again today, celebrating my 41st birthday, having one of those lazy mornings with enough coffee to get me going. Same same, but different. Many things have changed, some things surprisingly little.

It only takes a spark

I suddenly find myself working on a refresh of my personal website. For the longest time it was hosted on GitHub Pages with Jekyll. As eager as I’ve been in the recent years to just ignore whichever Javascript framework was released last week, this time I’m building it on Astro, and having a ton of fun.

Sometimes it only takes a random encounter to inspire you. For me this time, it was discovering Pilcrow’s website, which I adore in its combination of minimal aesthetics and awesome content. This iteration of my site blatantly copies from them – gratitude!

They say you should always be a bit ashamed of what you’ve created previously, as that’s the way you know you’ve developed. Looking at my old blog posts I’m happy they still exist (not least because cool URLs don’t die!), yet they feel written in a completely different era. Reading my old posts gives me mixed feelings, but it’s still awesome to have an online history, even if an incomplete one.

I *could* scold myself for still not having created myself the vibrant online presence I envisioned. Still there’s joy and hope in being able to pull off a refresh and a blog entry. Even if it would turn out to be the only instance in the next five years, it is still worth a toast.

After all, who knows – maybe I’ll have a little too much coffee on another lazy day off as well 🤞