• Sound of Metal
• Bardo

• The Arrival

I stepped away from Instagram on purpose a couple months ago to reset and evaluate what the platform was doing for me. I had become increasingly frustrated with the amount of obvious spam in my DMs. I hadn’t had a real conversation with a real person on Instagram in a few months. I didn’t want to become a video content producer and that seemed the way that folks making the sort of art I was making managed to breakthrough. I was bored with the hustle that wasn’t returning a net positive. I had made a few friends, but let’s be honest… social media friendships are mostly an illusion. Even the ones I thought I’d formed with people local to me were essentially vapor. I’d say I’m as much to blame, but I’m not. I tried. I showed up.

I was tired of being a party to a relationship that was overwhelmingly one-sided. Literally and figuratively. I was tired of being a product sold to advertisers. I was tired of the guilt I felt when I wasn’t posting material for my mostly-collage-centric followers. They didn’t give a shit about the recipe’s I was having a blast learning to make. The simple proof was in the sheer number of followers who’d spontaneously combust every time I made a post that wasn’t a collage.

Whatever. It is what it is. In the end, I had been thinking more and more about what I was actually getting from Instagram. And I realized it wasn’t very much beyond a timeline of my life, and I could realistically and more accurately reflect that elsewhere online if that’s what I really wanted.

So, I decided to take a break.

A couple of months later, when I realized that I didn’t really care about Instagram anymore I began plotting my final escape.

The idea was to return to the old days and setup a WordPress blog to become my primary online presence and walk away from the walled gardens that are your average social media networks. My own space would allow me to do whatever I wanted, however I wanted. I own a couple dozen or so domains and maintain an account with a webhost where I can play around with pretty much any open source web application I want. It wouldn’t take much effort to hang out another shingle.

Here I am again. Blogging. Everything and nothing.

This isn’t about followers or monetization. Its an outlet for whatever I need. Art in progress, house projects, culinary adventures, random lists, photographs, and memories.

• Little Calf Mountain – MP 99.5 – 1.7 mi OAB
• Blackrock Summit – MP 84.4 – 1.8 Mi
• Loft Mountain Loop – MP 79.5 – 2.1 mi loop
• Pocosin Trail – MP 59.5 – 2.5 mi OAB
• Limberlost Trail – MP 43 – 1.3 mi loop
• Millers Head Trail – MP 42.5 – 1.5 mi OAB
• Little Stony Man Cliffs – MP 39.1
• Thompson Hollow Trail – Outside the Park
• Snead Farm Loop – MP 5.1
• Fox Hollow Trail – MP 4.6

My latest drag name.