may I introduce…

Generally speaking, I’ve tended to be the kind of person who, before starting a book, absolutely must read the introduction, no matter how long and dry it might be. Since you clicked on the link marked “introduction,” you might understand what I’m talking about.

This site has been up continuously since February 2001. (Some of the initial blog posts predate the site launch because I wanted to pre-populate what I was then calling the “anti-blog,” for which I had a rationale.)

When I started the site, I lived in Minneapolis, and its first year and a half coincided with the second half of my time there. My faithful updating of the site tailed off somewhat during my early years in the San Francisco Bay Area, especially when I was still hand-coding it in BBEdit. In the last little while, though, I have been far more faithful in updating it, though I don’t know if most of the people I know are really all that aware of that fact.

My usual pattern of updating the site was typically to ignore it for a while and then post a big glut of previously repressed self-expression — usually during a less busy period. (Read more biographical information if you’re so inclined.) Lately, though, I’ve been posting more often, but with less original thought and more reaction to outside events and people. I don’t know if one state is worse than the other.

In any case, this version of the site represents a major shift from previous versions. I not only redesigned the site — giving it a more subdued color scheme than ever and, I’d like to think, a subtler feel — I also gave it a backbone. More accurately, I gave it a back end: gohlkusmaximus.com is now running on the fabulous WordPress blog software. I recommend it highly — it’s free, it’s open source, it’s totally cross-platform, it’s constantly being updated, it’s relatively easy to install and customize, it’s extremely well-documented, and it’s easy to use once installed. And it has a large community of users and developers who are devoted to keeping it relevant and useful. What else could you possibly want?

Though the “Mural Coming” sign (pictured above) is no longer at 15th and Webster, I continue to make slow but certain progress at gohlkusmaximus.com.

Read the colophon (yes, I have one of those).