Yes, one day, I'm on Wordpress, THEN I render HTML via Jekyll THEN Wordpress...AND today? Rendering my HTML! And like Jo Dee Messina sings, "I ain't never lookin' back and that's a fact!" I even have a resolution set for the new year that I'm going to stick with this static setup.

I know what you're thinking—does this re-applied Tim McGraw song capture it about me?

Cause it's all in my head
I think about it over and over again
I replay it over and over again
And I can't take it, yeah, I can't shake it

Honestly, do you want to know what it's really like in my head?

1. ST: Voyager's Seven talks to Chakotay about a conspiracy against Janeway Part 1 / Part 2
2. ...and then she turns right around...
3. ...and coherently flips the narrative with Janeway

Just crank up the playback speed and that's just about it—well, sans the body suit!

What's been holding me back from making the leap toward installing the Ruby and Jekyll combo on my MacBook is that I wasn't sure if I wanted to go in this direction because I didn't want to jack up my NEW, PRISTINE computer! I heavily considered just running a Linux VM to do my testing/development. But, hey, you don't learn if you're not willing to break stuff!

While in my first attempt I tried the official docs on Jekyllrb.com, the wheels fell off somewhere around switching over to a bash shell, for though I did install it successfully, it just would never recognize the newer version of Ruby! It'd list just that silly MacOS out-of-date 2.6 one! Egad, man, just egad!

HOWEVER...

I found a cool write-up by this guy and it totally got me the environment so that I could do my thing. I REALLY wanted to keep Zsh because...well, it's default. There's little reason for me to introduce things that might break.

And yes, my reaction when I ran ruby -v and saw "ruby 3.1.3p185," well, it went something like this with Dwight's raise ramp up.

So whala, I dropped all the Wordpress/MySQL stuff and set up a static home.

*Wait, wasn't I once in a liberal arts program doing graduate work?*

Album of the Day: The Benjamin Gate - Untitled

While I jumped the gun a little with my album selection yesterday, I decided to forego the years of 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 and move right into 2001. The Benjamin Gate's Untitled was a really big album for me. When I view the play counts on Spotify, I find it such a shame, because it really is a good Christian album—at least for where I was in that Spring semester as a 22-year-old in that transition from the college scene to Truth. And as I listen to the music today, I am reminded of my old '93 Silverado, driving up to the Ugly Mug for another evening with that Memphis Alumni sticker freshly applied to the windshield...

...I see all the old faces with gleaming eyes and bright smiles...

...we were all so young...

...all broke...

...folks engaged in chess & Mahjong...

...laughter...

...that night of karaoke and my singing Friends in Low Places

...the Cookie Monster...

...Jones Soda...

...the poster of George Costanza in briefs on the guys' restroom wall

...photos of people wearing Ugly Mug T-shirts across the world on a bulletin board far before my first Europe visit...

...old broken couches draped with velvet material...

...a Chili's booth...

...a LOT of Coldplay Parachutes and U2 All That You Can't Leave Behind...

...grabbing another fried rice from A-Tan's, but this time watching President Bush address the nation after 9/11 from their mounted TV...

...med students ALL-THE-TIME

...buying a high school girl's duct tape wallet handiwork at the auction 'cause I knew NO ONE wanted THAT...

...watching Tom Brady's first Super Bowl against the vaunted Rams; Bucs/Raiders the following year...

...attending movie nights followed by a Rhodes professor's discussion on A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Chocolat and Unbreakable

...my flailing attempts at romance

...building resumes and burning CDs.

I went from thinking it was some weird cult where people talked about Jesus everyday to my volunteering every Friday night from August 2001 to August 2002; I even ran the lyrics for the Sunday night worship. It was quite a transformation for a guy who once had other plans for his weekend nights at clubs. Through to the end of 2002, I'd meet up there for a Bible Study with the guys and some from Rhodes at 6 AM every Friday before the place was open, taking turns who would bring the Gibson's Donuts. And yes, the Seattle's Best coffee was free in that study, but as the Bottomless Mug was just $1, I wouldn't have minded chipping in for it! I think one of the more content times in my life was just washing the dishes by hand at the end of a Friday night, sometime past the midnight hour next to that Poplar and Highland intersection. It felt right.

I went up there everyday—as did everyone else. It was the only place I've ever experienced that was Cheers...

Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name
And they're always glad you came
You want to be where you can see
Our troubles are all the same
You want to be where everybody knows your name

I really don't know if the camaraderie would have been the same in today's Facebook. But, for the turn of the millennium, it was a special moment. Everyone was on the cusp of something. And twenty years later when I go to the grocer and see a bag of Ugly Mug Coffee on the shelf, I think of what it once was...what that place meant to me.