hello-world

I've been building websites for over twenty years. In that time I've had exactly zero personal sites that lasted longer than six months. They always start the same way — a burst of motivation, a fresh repo, a custom design system that I'll "definitely finish this time." Then life happens, the deploy sits untouched, and eventually the domain expires while I pretend not to notice.

This time is different. Not because I've suddenly developed discipline, but because I finally figured out what I actually wanted to build.

The Problem With Portfolio Sites

Most developer portfolios are boring. I don't say that to be cruel — I say it because I've built about fifteen of them, and they were all boring. They hit the same beats: hero section, about section, project cards, contact form. Maybe a blog that has two posts, both from the week the site launched.

The format is fine. It works. It gets you hired. But it doesn't say anything about who you actually are.

What I Wanted Instead

I wanted a site that felt like opening someone's laptop when they weren't looking. Not in a creepy way — in a "oh, this person is clearly unhinged in a very specific and endearing way" kind of way.

I wanted a terminal because I live in terminals. I wanted a panic engine because anxiety is real and if I can't fix it, I can at least make it a game mechanic. I wanted hidden easter eggs because the best part of any website is the part you weren't supposed to find.

The Stack

Nuxt 3 for the framework. Obsidian for content management, because I already live there. TailwindCSS because I've stopped pretending I enjoy writing CSS from scratch. Rive for the duck mascot, because every site needs a mascot and mine needed to have feelings.

The panic engine is custom — a client-side state machine that tracks everything you do and turns it into a number between 0 and 10+. More on that in a future post, assuming the panic engine doesn't prevent me from writing it.

So Here We Are

You're reading this on a site that took me three months to build and will take me the rest of my life to fill with content. That's the deal I've made with myself. The site is done. Now I just have to use it.

Don't panic.

This is the first post. The universe started with a bang; this started with a cursor.

More to come.