Hey there! Long time no blog
“I’m hoping the inclusion of a blog will get me to work on it a bit more.”
That’s a line from my first blog post. The first of a whopping total of three. Oh, sure, I started with the best of intentions. I was going to do a minimum of one post per month. Just the forced repetition would make me a better writer, a more productive writer.
So what happened?
I guess I just don’t have much to say. Just look at my Twitter account. It’s mostly retweets or me reacting to the latest Iowa State football or basketball game. Let’s face it, I’m a lurker.
What’s the occasion for this missive? Another quote from that first post:
“Generally the thing that motivates me to work on a personal website is the prospect of looking for a new job [or] I fear I’m in danger of being downsized.”
Fear of losing your job has become a constant in the newspaper business, particularly when the economy is in a funk, as has been the case since the advent of the COVID pandemic. So in the interest of staying ahead of the game, here’s an update to the ol’ personal website. Nothing major, just a few new examples under /developer/ and a downloadable resume.
Additions under /developer/
- Border Wall - The project that landed me a position on the Storytelling Studio at Gannett.
- Cincinnati Neighborhoods - An easy to scan data app looking at statistics for Cincinnati neighborhoods.
- Graphic Novel Editor - My stab at a drag-and-drop editor for online graphic novels.
- In Depth Editor - The flagship product for the Storytelling Studio.
- Parkersburg Tornado - Probably the pinnacle of what I accomplished with Flash in my news artist days.
- Podcasts Landing Page - A good example of the meat and potatoes work I do for Gannett.
- Rainfall Lookup - We do a lot of data lookups. Here’s one.
- Virtual Senior Night - An example of how we repurpose prior work for something new.
What’s next?
I did enjoy writing the post about animating a logo with Svelte, so maybe another how-to is in order. I’m kind of toying with the idea of rebuilding the website in Svelte Kit. Not only would it be a great way to learn Svelte Kit, but it would open up the possibility of adding a bit more interactivity to the site since I’d be able to publish Svelte components right here within the pages and posts. In particular, there are a couple of things I did in Flash back in the day that I’d like to try to recreate with Svelte.
Stay tuned.
Update
I guess updating the site worked. I left Gannett in January for a front-end developer position with Dotdash Meredith (DDM). The work is a whole lot different from what I was doing with the Storytelling Studio, mostly because I’m working with DDM’s very bespoke publishing system. It’s a lot of XML. I like to say I don’t so much develop any more as I configure. But the job security seems a bit more solid and the pay is better, and that’s not nothing. In fact, my old team is no more.
The layoff and furloughs of late 2022 lead to me leaving, which lead to the other two developers leaving, which lead to the end of the Storytelling Studio. I feel bad about it, but newspapers are in a very tough spot, and specialty teams are a luxury they can no longer, or will no longer afford. The sad thing is they’re getting rid of the things that made newspapers special, taking away what should be driving their recovery.
But I digress. Bottom line is I have a new job. I’m still keeping my javascript chops sharp with personal projects — you’re looking version 2 of this site, ported from Ruby-based jekyll to javascript-based sveltekit. I’ll try to share what I’m up to when I can find the time. Until then, thanks for reading.