· 2 min read

So. How are you holding up?

#website #personal #update

I know, I know. I’ve said it before. But this time, I really mean it. I’m going to blog more regularly. I promise.

This time is different though. I’ve got a new site, statically generated with Hugo, hosted on Cloudflare Pages. It’s easier for me to update and maintain; I can write posts in Markdown and just commit them to GitHub. No more messing about with WordPress or being worried about security updates.

It’s been nearly a year since my last post, so what’s happened?

  • I started rock climbing. Didn’t expect that, but it’s a lot of fun and I’m really enjoying it. I might post some videos and write-ups here.
  • I started sailing. Didn’t expect that, but it’s a lot of fun… no really, it is. Turns out when you make friends with people who have a boat, you end up sailing.
  • More changes with work since last time. I’m still at DigiCert, but I’ve moved teams and I’m now working in the Global Platform Devops team, which is an interesting change after 21+ years of software development.
  • I’ve given a talk at 2 conferences, 2 PHP user groups and I’m giving another talk at PHPDay in May. My first time speaking at a big conference was nerve-wracking and the video of me being terrified is over on the talks page.
  • The ADHD diagnosis has been big, really big. While it was a relief to realise that there’s an explanation for some things I found difficult; it’s also revealed a lot of things I have to deal with and work through. Definitely some stuff to do there.
  • Been spending far too much time with agentic AI. The implications of it within the software industry are interesting, challenging and I absolutely hate the impact it’s having on jobs, resource usage, the environment, how training data was acquired and the insistance of companies to wedge it into everything.
  • The UK is getting more and more annoying to live in. The Government are just doing everything they can to persecute minorities and make it difficult to continue living here. I have red lines about what I’ll accept, and as soon as they cross them, I’m out. I don’t want to have to leave, but if they make my life more difficult, I have no choice.
  • I’ve lost about 48kg in the last year and a half, so that’s some good news. I’m now the lowest weight I’ve been since I was about 16.

So that’s the summary. I’m not sure if I’ll actually stick to posting, but I’m going to try. I’ve got quite a few things I’d like to post about, and I really want to do more content, so maybe this time it’ll work!