BrockLi Soup

I’ve had this site on WordPress for a few days now, after using Movable Type for over three years.

So far, I love it.

I don’t want to place blame, but for the past couple months, Movable Type was giving me hell. I kept getting 500 Internal Server Errors on almost every other page load, and I don’t know if it was because of MT, 1&1 (my web host), or because my 650+ posts were too much for the system. According to the Google, a lot of other people were having this problem - long run times seemed to be the issue - but no one seemed to have any solutions. It was incredibly frustrating to do anything, and so I just avoided it.

Under those circumstances, MT was kind of like a rusted-out Oldsmobile that only fired on three cylinders and refused to start on cold mornings. In comparison, WordPress is like a brand new Vespa - quick, sleek, and kind of fun. And most importantly, it doesn’t stall in the middle of the highway.

Now that I think about it, maybe it was because of the language. Movable Type is mostly Perl, and WordPress is PHP. I don’t know enough about Perl to know if that could have been an issue, but whatever. I’m a big fan of Movable Type, but it just wasn’t working for me. I got all my posts and comments moved over, the permalinks seem to be alright, and I’m happy. I need to get my portfolio and project pages fixed up, but on the whole, the migration was easier and quicker than I thought it would be.

Of course, as I was editing this, brockli.com disappeared entirely for half an hour, then gave me a 500 error, then refused to connect to the database for a little while. Maybe I can blame 1&1 after all.

After reading Getting Things Done and trying a couple times to implement the system, I think I’ve only taken away the parts that actually add MORE stress: everything is work, and you just need to prioritize and do it.

With that mentality, blogging falls in with booking hotels and airfare, planning bachelor parties, regular household chores, and of course, actual work work. The trouble is that all of those things take precedence over blogging, so I just haven’t been doing it - and then I feel like there’s one more thing on my to-do list.

I started this blog with the best of intentions: I wanted to actually write interesting, well-written posts - unlike the short trivial crap I used to post in LiveJournal constantly. I saw (and still see) a lot of really talented writers that are blogging about all sorts of things, and I wanted - to some extent - to emulate that. But the truth is, I’m not a good writer. I have ideas for blog posts all the time, but I don’t feel like expending the time or energy to write something GOOD about it, so I just don’t bother. In general, I really like writing about stuff on here - frankly, I think it’s more for me than anyone else. It’s kind of therapeutic to write about stuff, to work through my feelings on the matter. But so often, my desire to write something is overwhelmed by my desire to write something good. It feels like an obligation, but an obligation to whom? Only a small handful of people read this site, and as much as I love you all, I don’t think any of you expect a whole lot of quality out of me. Maybe I need to adjust my own expectations and just post stuff when I feel like it, whether I can make it good or not.

Furthermore, Movable Type and 1&1 have been giving me hell lately. In the MT admin, I get 500 Internal Server Errors on almost every page load, so even a simple post is a frustrating exercise. I managed to import all my entries and comments in WordPress, so we’ll see if this works better (and incidentally, you may get all my posts again in your feed reader - sorry about that).

Long story short, blogging has left a bad taste in my mouth for a couple of reasons. I’m going to keep doing it, though. It won’t be polished and it won’t be pretty, but I think I’m OK with that.

(And yes, I hate blogging-about-blogging as much as everyone else, but you’ll get over it)

Hurrah!

“In contrast to earlier times, our state now recognizes that an individual’s capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual’s sexual orientation,” the court said in the 120-page ruling, “and, more generally, that an individual’s sexual orientation — like a person’s race or gender — does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights.” (emphasis mine)

Link to CNN.com

I don’t know anything about Webb or his politics, but I think an elected gay black man means we’re making progress - in Virginia, no less (well, Northern Virginia, but still). Link