Pretty rich that I am extolling the virtues of boredom while at the same time reviving a recently discontinued series of posts on my site called, of all things, Diversions.
But hear me out.
These diversions aren’t the bad kind of diversions. I mean, my most recent post in this series talked about growing garlic for farmer’s sake.
So what have I been filling my time with?
I started building an all-new static site generator for WordPress, of course.
You may recall I built Tuff, an SSG that gobbled up directories full of Markdown files and spewed out a website in just a few seconds. But then, I decided to switch back to WordPress (in part, because I build a product within it, but also in part because I do like the Gutenberg editing experience).
When I jumped back into WordPress I very quickly wished I was serving my site statically and so I found Simply Static, a plugin that turns a WordPress website into a bunch of static files. I use it for Good Migrations and The Watercolor Gallery. But when I tried to use it for my website, it choked. I made do for a while, but it took well over an hour to build my website even for very small updates that should have taken seconds. I emailed them, several times, sent in log files, explained the situation — I even read their code… but, they were borderline unwilling to try to help.
I know how hard it is to provide support for a WordPress product. The ecosystem is so vast, the environments across all installs so diverse, it is nearly impossible. So I do not blame them for pretty much leaving me on my own to figure it out.
But that led me to wonder if I should port Tuff to WordPress? I didn’t. I ultimately started over from scratch and, in a few quick sessions, and admittedly, with the assistance of an LLM, I had my own plugin that built my website in… wait for it… seconds. Not my whole site (that still takes a few minutes, and I hope to improve this) but only the parts that need to be updated when publishing a single post.
If you’re reading this in an RSS reader or on my website, you’re reading a file that was created by this new plugin.
I’ve also been planning on a pretty extension renovation of our basement to upgrade our laundry area and to build a more formal darkroom. After a year of construction on our home, adding a mother-in-law apartment, decks, new porch, roof, etc. I’m not too eager to have more work being done. But, at the same time, once you’ve done these larger projects smaller ones do seem easier.
In #6 I mentioned making grape jelly in the fall of 2024. Well, we made a batch again this year and it is some of the best jelly I’ve ever had. Long story very short; we picked our grapes on the same date in 2025 as we did in 2024. But the grapes were very different. Less sweet than 2024, more tart. This gives the jelly much more character and a tart finish that I really love. I’ll be aiming for this same profile in 2026.
- Signboard – A bit of a shameless plug for a project I’m working on in my spare time here and there. I use this app every single day to manage my side business. I love it.
- Immich – I’m giving strong consideration to moving to Immich for all of my personal photo management. If you have experience with it, please let me know. Via Jack Baty.
- Hopewood Baskets – Gorgeous handmade willow baskets.
- Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers on Tiny Desk – I don’t think I need to say anything more.
- Adrianne Lenker and David Byrne – Two artists I’ve been diving into recently.