Category: General

New? or new to you?

I love tech and PCs. I’ve always enjoyed building my own computers and tinkering with things and creating. I still do, but there are two issues. First, hardware is getting outrageous. Storage and memory are ridiculous and there’s no end in sight. Second, not everyone loves the stuff I do.

If I wanted to appeal to a wider audience or even just have my friends enjoy seeing what I create, things needed to change. I needed more things that appealed to people that don’t have to do with the boxes taking up shelf space in my office. Those boxes are important, but so are other things.

Don’t get me wrong, I will still make content on those boxes and many more, but there will be more. Life is not defined by a YouTube algorithm. It may small steps at first, but that’s how we all learn to walk. Blogs like this are the first step, but the second is more of a leap.

Off a cliff?

In a manner of speaking, yes. I bought a new domain.

Take a second to look at the search bar. That first part thatpaulguy.tech is the domain, and it brings you to this website in all it’s glory. It’s very functional. It tells you who I am and a bit of what to expect when you are here. But to introduce something like this blog may be confusing. That part needed to change.

Buying a new domain is a simple process, and in theory, I could just move this site over there and hope for the best. To me that feels a bit lazy, and it doesn’t really fix what is broken. You don’t take the old air freshener out of your old car when you trade it in for a new one. Just because it’s already there, doesn’t mean I need to bring it to the new place.

But what about this site?

There will be some things that make the transition, and for a while at least, I will keep both sites. I have until the end of next summer to renew this domain, so we will see what fits, but that means the new site will be a different set up with different content. It may be a challenge keeping up, but there are more things coming up that would fit that page better than this one.

There is a lot of work in this site, but it’s not always consistent and I often struggle finding what fits. The new site won’t have that restriction, and although I will make mistakes, I look forward to it. As I’ve stated before, I’m not afraid to learn something.

So, over the next few days, thatpaulguy.net will go live. It will still tell you who I am, but the dot net allows me to widen the idea pool and create something besides tech content. I will still keep this site and occasionally there will be stuff that is on both sites, but I no longer have to wonder if things fit. Hell, none of it fits, but now I’m free to figure that out.

If you are still looking for the tech blog, I have to update that as well, but you will find it here. And my buddy Gus has something started that should be fun. He has a teaser of what’s coming here.

Where do I start?

In my quest to make a success out of all things ‘That Paul Guy’, I am learning a valuable lesson. Some times things work best in their simplest form. That’s not life changing news. It won’t solve all of the world’s problems, but in this case it’s very relevant.

You may have noticed this blog is not where my normal non tech blog would reside. For a couple of years I’ve kept two separate blog spaces. It was a way for me to keep all of my tech stuff in one space, and everything else in another. It worked out to be more like my tech in one place and everything else, every where else.

Confusion sets in

I have a blog on buymeacoffee, the tech blog, and a private journal for the personal ramblings. There are Two YouTube channels and a channel on Twitch. Each is probably a great idea, but it’s very far from what I started wanting to create. And even further from the repository for all of the code I personally developed.

The stray is fine. I work as a software engineer, and don’t want any part of that flowing over into content I create. But, that leaves me scattered, and not in a good way. Yes, there is a difference between diversified and scattered. Diversified implies there is some order or plan, I had none.

The way my mind works in a strange way, sometimes. If things are too overwhelming in more than one area, the entire assembly line shuts down. I then have to put things back together one or two at a time to get everything working. Sometimes parts get left out.

A solution?

That begins changing now. Actually, it began changing this past spring. There have been a lot of things going on in my life lately and most have been very positive. I haven’t had to shut the entire line down, but I did have to remove some of the things that started to get in the way of that positive momentum.

It caused some confusion, some hurt feelings and a lot of disconnection. I have a direction I want to go, and life is too short to put things off that are supposed to mean something. All of the scattered pieces and forks in the other fires had to be reigned in, and put in one fire.

This blog is one of the first attempts to bring all of that home. It will mean an enormous amount of work, especially if I choose to link things from both YouTube channels and highlights from streaming. It will mean a lot of work and I can’t put off doing a YouTube video because I have writers block, or I don’t have tech that is interesting that week. Likewise, not having personal insights to share doesn’t mean I can ignore the tech I’ve been testing, or that I can skip streaming that week.

So, I invite you to come with me on a bit of a new journey. It’s the first time in many years that I’ve done things for myself without being in survival mode, and it should be interesting. No, I will not be ignoring everyone else, nor will I shut everyone out, but at times it may seem that way.

Action.

Over the next few weeks to a month, more things will happen to this site. Pages will change, the structure and appearance will change and the domain may get an adjustment to fit the wider category. In addition, my buddy Gus has a project I will be helping with, so free time may be scarce. What won’t be scarce is purpose. I’m striving to redefine mine. I hope whomever is reading this has theirs or finds it.

Don’t ever give up living and learning and finding new things to explore. Life is too short to look back and say “I wish I would have done that”. The next several months promises to be interesting, I welcome it and look forward to it.