Happy New Year! Here Are Some Obligatory Blog Resolutions

The new year’s upon us, and I want to expand the blog this year. I’ve kept this thing quiet, writing a monthly post for the past 8 months. I didn’t socialize it. I didn’t include it in any profiles. I didn’t even tell the bots about it.

Stealth mode.

I wanted to see if I’d stick with it.

I have.

Now, I want to expand it. How, you ask? Pull up a chair.

Or pull up a stool or cushion or mat or whatever if you’re anti-chair. If you have a standing desk, walk over.

Resolutions

I have four things in mind to make this blog better.

1. Increase post fequency
2. Add an audio component
3. Make video content
4. Socialize

Increase Post Frequency

Want more posts? Cool. I’ll ramp up production.

Frankly, I’ll ramp up production regardless of whether you want more posts. A month between posts is an eternity. I can do better. I resolve to do better.

For 2024, I’m gonna publish content bimonthly. Or biweekly. Which one means twice a month? Crap, they both mean twice a month. And even twice a month isn’t accurate because I mean every two weeks.

Let’s say every two weeks.

New posts will appear every two weeks.

2024!

Add an Audio Component

I love the sound of my own voice. It shows in my writing. I’m gonna start talking the writing.

A few years ago, Medium introduced listening functionality to articles. Each post rocked a little audio player to aurally consume the text. It was like the audiobook equivalent of a blog post. I loved it. I’m gonna rip it off.

I resolve to start recording posts. There are a ton of user-centric reasons to do this. I’ll do it for those, plus I want to. I love audio. I have a nice mic, sound interfaces (ba-dump, tch!), and all the digital audio software I could ever not use. I plan to use at least a bit of it and start recording posts.

As a stretch goal, I’ll aim to create an RSS feed for the audio-only posts. That’d be slick. No guarantees on that one.

2024!

Make Video Content

I used to futz with YouTube. This was in another life in a parallel timeline. The content had nothing to do with application development and didn’t overlap with the current timeline. In this current timeline, however, I plan to create and post video content to YouTube. The universe may be folding over on itself. Maybe time is cyclical.

Maybe.

I’ve always loved teaching and mentoring and performing and telling stories, though. Video’s great for that. Also, building on the whirlwind no-success of this blog, it’s a great time to start!

I’ll lob some softballs and make a few CSS fundamentals or career journey vids to kick things off. Low-hanging fruit. I need to find a tone and feel for the medium. The good news is that I can draw on bimonthly, biweekly, or every two weeksly content from the blog.

2024!

Socialize

I haven’t mentioned this blog to anybody. Nobody at work knows about it. Nobody on social knows about it. I’m not sure my wife and kids know about it, though my daughter might; she’s spooky-intuitive.

No, reread it. I did not just call my daughter spooky.

If I wanna circulate this content, though, I better find and start tootin’ on my own horn. At the very least, I’ll socially post about new content. That’d also give me an excuse to use Mastodon and Bluesky.

Comments and real-time feedback are a whole other ball of wax. I’d love to do something there, but that wax ain’t waxing in 2024.

2024!

Realistic Expectations

Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.

Cigar Afficianado Sam
Better known as Samuel Clemens
Better-better known as Mark Twain

So go New Year’s resolutions.

We’re 3 days deep in 2024. 2024 is a long year. It’s a leap year, so it’s an extra long year. Furthermore, it’s a presidential election year in the United States, so it’s really more of an extraextraextraextraextraextra long year.

Bear in mind these are resolutions for the year. If you check back next week, there’s zero chance any of these things will be reflected. If you check back on December 31, 2024, the odds improve staggeringly.

I also reserve the right to pull back on any of these ideas. They’re resolutions, not covenants. Life happens, and this blog is still a hobby.

I wanna see this thing keep going, though. It’s overdue.

Here’s hoping your 2024 is off to a strong start and you have exciting resolutions.

Also, please call your mother more often.

2024!