In a fit of uncharacteristic motivation, I spent Friday evening redesigning my website (see also: the aforementioned afoot changes, only 3.5 months late). I’m nowhere near done, of course, but it’s already better than what I had before.

Ah, what I had before. Ah, the old WasabiJane.

This is, I think, the fourth incarnation of WasabiJane. First there was the waste of a year of a paid domain name from a won bet, then there was blogger. The last incarnation was born in December 2007, when I was still trying to figure out how to systematically break things in WordPress and needed to create a portfolio site. In retrospect, I’m amazed I actually did as much as I did with it; admittedly, I didn’t update the portfolio at all (a function of a poor choice of a template), but up until about a year ago I actually blogged multiple times per month.

I could hazard a guess as to why I stopped. Life has shifted multiple times since I graduated in December 2008. In April, my boss at University Outreach and Engagement told me he couldn’t afford to renew my temp contract, and I’d be out of a job come October. In August, I started transitioning from there to doing contract work at MessageMakers (an awesome production company in Old Town, Lansing). September was consumed by a workation to Northern Wisconsin, a struggle to balance a workload for both MessageMakers and UOE, and a physical move from an apartment into the basement of some friends from church. (September was awful. I don’t recommend trying to balance that much at once without major league support.) For the next six months, life was in…well, I’d call it a holding pattern, but I’ve already seen some good growth as a direct result of it.

In short, the last 18 months or so have been like fertilizer: lots of crap, but necessary for growth.

So where am I now, and why am I actually writing here again? In April, I started a full-time position at Covenant Eyes (official title: Web Content Producer, and yes, I am working on redesigning the site). Of indirect benefit to the blog is the fact that I actually feel stable about life for the first time in a long time. I have a salaried position. I have awesome coworkers. As of two weeks ago, I have my own apartment again. I have negative space again.

The second thing that changed is that I’m back around bloggers. I mean, my desk is right next to the company blogger’s. I proofread at least five blog posts and edit one podcast a week (by the way, this week’s is particularly awesome). And at least a few coworkers have personal blogs. I’m too lazy to look any actual research up at the moment, but there’s sufficient evidence that you rise to (or sink to) the level of your peers. Now that I’m in a place where people blog, I’ll be more likely to think about blogging myself.

Hence the rebirth of WasabiJane. Expect more of what I’ve historically written, only posted more than once every four months. Oh, and probably containing 20% more rants about the porn industry.

design, site design, internet

This, my friends, is the intersection between the internet and mass media at its finest:

It’s fun! It’s free! And it’s available on the internets… until Sunday.

I think that’s my one lament about it, actually. It’s only up for a week. The last episode will only be up for 48 hours. Which may be brilliant on Joss Whedon’s part–the lack of availability may very well encourage people to buy it. But I would have liked to see that fact advertised more heavily, and I would have liked to have seen the entire thing up for one more week.

Granted, that may very well have to do with the fact that I’m tearing my computer apart on Friday night to move to an apartment that won’t have internet until Monday. No, wait, scratch that, I’m tearing my computer apart Saturday morning. Right after I watch the Dr. Horrible denouement.

fun internet, joss whedon, media