About…

…Me!

Thanks for checking out my site. I’m a cynical 30-something from South Wales. I’m happily married, and lucky enough to be the proud dad of the most gorgeous daughter. My girls are my life, I’d be nothing without them.

I work full time, but don’t really consider it to be a big part of my identity. I love my job, but keep it firmly within working hours.

I have a beard. It’s patchy.

Interests

🖥️ I love all things tech, always have. I’ve always been a tinkerer - I used to take great delight in rooting / jailbreaking every phone I had, though I’m now placidly conforming in Apple’s walled garden (though that might change if another charging port breaks).

📡 Digital privacy has become an increasing concern as I age, so now my tinkering is mostly centred on self hosting alternatives to big cloud services. My favourites are Nextcloud (OneDrive), FreshRSS (Reddit - kinda), and Navidrome (Spotify). I’m too faint-hearted to host my own email.

🎮 Video games have always been a huge part of my life, though this has diminished somewhat in recent years (strong correlation with child reering). Nowadays, cosy games I can pick up / put down with as much investment as I see fit are my go to’s, my all time favourite being Stardew Valley.

📚 I also love reading. Mostly fiction - fantasy and sci-fi are my comforts, but I’m trying to pepper in more classics. Non-fiction books are sparse, limited mostly to philosophy, space and history. Most of my non-fic comes from academic sources - essays and journals. I don’t really read any advice / productivity books - reading, to me, is about exploring the world(s) around me rather than my specific place in them. For self reflection, I have…

Hobbies

🎵 I’ve been making electronic music since I was in my teens (around 20 years ago, blimey…). My first love was Hard House, but I’ve branched out into other genres as I’ve aged, and love all forms of electronic music. My usual haunts these days are Trance, D&B, and Ambient. My music alias is The 1029 - based on the fact that I finished my first ever track at 10:29pm. I spend more time making than finishing music (I just love the craft), but you can find my finished stuff on Spotify.

📷 I tell people I’m an ex-professional photographer, but what I mean by this is that I set up a wedding business the summer before Covid and almost ruined myself financially. While no longer a money-making venture, photography remains one of my core hobbies. I’m currently exploring film using a cheap 35mm SLR and a Polaroid. I love them, but deep down I’d love a modern mirrorless setup. At some point, I’ll add a photo section to this site to share my work.

📝 I like to write short stories and cryptic poems. I’ve also started a few novels that I’d like to finish, but it’s the type of thing that’s had “this year’s my year!” energy for about 3 years. I do most of my serious writing in Obsidian, but I also have an Olivetti Lettera 32 typewriter and Amstrad PCW16 word processor that I like to use when I want to be disconnected for a while.

This triad of hobbies are my therapy, and I feel like they give me the tools I need to express myself in whatever way I want, often in ways that surprise me. A longtime goal of mine is to combine the three into one “mixed media” project - some kind of audiovisual project with written words. We’ll see.

…This Site

This site is open source! You can find the code here.