Building this website

To be meta; the first post on this website for my creations will be about... the creation of this website.

The purpose of this website

I've just resigned from my position as Senior Software Engineer at the Financial Times. At the end of my tenure I will have been there for just over two years. It's hard to believe I started at the company at around the time of the first lockdown in London at the start of the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic. Time flies when you're desperately trying to cling to life!

Because of that desperate clinging to life, it's time to take a break. In the six years I've been a developer/software engineer/programmer, I've not had more than a month off and although this isn't strange (in capitalist society) to work non-stop, I need a break. I'm going to be taking a short career break of three to six months. After three months I will start looking for a new job (hire me, set your calendars for July 1st).

But what about those three months not working? If I do "nothing" I will very quickly find myself routineless and even more insane. In the last few months I've rediscovered a love of art, and discovered that I could be a lot better at it. I've been teaching myself 3D modelling and photography but I really feel like these will benefit from learning to draw, something I've always wanted to do but never found the diligence or the time. So that's what I'm going to do until I find a new job: draw, art, create and model.

This website was built so I could give regular updates on my art studies to prove to myself that I am progressing. It's not so much a blog but more of a portfolio of progress shots.

Tools used

I'd like to thank the following open source tools and developers for providing the tools with which to make this website: next, next-mdx-remote, open props, react and vercel.