joshua blount is all over the internet

Welcome

Joshua Blount — Mon, 02 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

New year, new patched up blog, let's see how this goes.

Returning to Web Development

Joshua Blount — Thu, 19 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

After about six years of building a video production business I'm exploring employment offers in web development again.

No LinkedIn, No Resumé

An update on the LinkedIn / Resume thing

Since I don't have either of the aforementioned documents, here's a timeline:

2002 - I stopped trying to finish a BS in COMP SCI at University of Central Florida and started doing web development, primarily as an employee for the first few years and later as a contractor
2017 - I started taking on video clients and telling my software clients I was moving away from web development for my work
Early 2020 - I got doxxed / arrested + COVID so I became a fulltime stay at home dad / house husband to support my partner and kid (I also deleted most of my accounts so that the people harassing me couldn't get to my clients, including my LinkedIn)
Late 2023 - After three years of slowly taking on more debt as we relied on my partner's income I start calling old employers looking for work

Why the pivot to video?

I've been producing short videos and clips since the first time I touched a camera, but didn't think of it as anything beyond a hobby until after our kid was born and I bought my first DSLR.

Like many nerdy parents I became engrossed with the camera and the process of producing beautiful images. Soon I was working on short video ads for my employer and trying to find other opportunities to hone my craft.

By 2017 I took on my first paying video clients and turned it into a thriving consultancy. Non-profits, developers, churches, real estate agents and various other clients hired me to produce a range of video assets and while I never got where I wanted to be, I was paying our rent doing video production work and having a lot of fun filming.

Why change now?

When I was doxxed and arrested in 2020 I went through the process of deleting any of the public social media accounts that attached me to any of my clients and shut down my business so I could focus on being a stay at home dad / house husband.

This plan went really well and was one of the best decisions I've ever made - my family is closer than ever - but financially speaking it's been devastating.

Initially I assumed I'd return to video work but as I survey my options I realize that I don't currently have the emotional capacity to both do a "day job" and run a business (including securing new clients) while maintaining my role doing most of the domestic labor at home.

So, I'm hoping to plug into an existing team so I can be helpful to their goals while maintaining my own personal creative projects and keeping our household running.

I'm all ears

The only websites I've made in the last couple years are this site and my podcast, but if you know someone who could use an overly experienced web developer who may need a few weeks to catch up I'd love to hear from you: hi@joshuablount.com

An Update

For what it's worth after several months of job searching I now have both a LinkedIn and a resume, which I'm happy to send to you via email if you'd like.

Getting Familiar

Joshua Blount — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

It's 2024, I'm renewing my search for a full time web development gig, so I borrowed my partner's 10 year old macbook air to see if I remembered how to do web development like I used to.

Thankfully coming back to OS X from a few years primarily using an iPad to do video editing seems a lot like hopping back on a skateboard after a few years: a little sketchy at first, but I can still land an ollie.

(Yes, this was primarily to confirm my publishing pipeline was functional)

Watching the News

Joshua Blount — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I've been thinking a lot about news and publishing lately, so I built a little page of some of the local news feeds in town.

I'm not super clear what I'm planning with that, and it's not a useful news source (it only updates when I hit a button).

I had the idea that I wanted to see how often KOIN, one of Portland's local news stations, was quoting cops in their stories and if that percentage would be an outlier when compared to their competitors.

Not really sure how far down that road I'll get, but even this roughly reverse chronological list of links has been interesting as an experiment.

Regarding the Portland Teachers' Strike

Joshua Blount — Tue, 26 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

"The crowd finally reached the apex, where together we sat and occupied the six-lane Burnside Bridge, at the peak of morning rush hour, for several minutes of silence. We wanted to send a message to our school leaders that their refusal to budge at the bargaining table not only affects us. It harms our students and our whole city. Looking at the determined faces surrounding us, it was clear that despite doubts, we were not giving up our fight for the schools our students deserve."

How Portland Teachers Led the Longest K–12 Strike in Decades by Melissa Blount and Matt Reed, Illustrations by Joe Brusky

I'll let my partner and her colleagues speak for themselves here, but I'm grateful they spent the time to try and document the strike at this comprehensive level.

My First Computer (in years)

Joshua Blount — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Back in mid 2020 I gave away my MacBook Pro in order to pursue using my iPad as my only computing device. I was probably experiencing burn out at some level after a couple decades doing software and needed to introduce change into my life.

It was never exactly perfect but I was able to get a lot done (including building some websites!) even if I was never quite as efficient as I had been with a "normal computer".

The New Setup

Last month we found a good deal on a used "gaming laptop" for the kid, who then gave me his ~12 year old hand-me-down desktop computer.

The desktop is a 7th generation something or another but it has 16GB of ram and a big 4TB disk for media along with a smaller SSD to run the operating system from along with enough onboard video card juice to power two 1080p displays.

So far the only thing that feels slow is when I'm moving around large files on the spinning disk hard drive, everything else seems snappy and responsive.

Projects I'm Hacking On

Here's a few projects I've been poking at in between job applications and business emails - really enjoying the tinkering experience and finding tools to solve some problems.

Highscores - the kid has a website with video games he's working on and I got frustrated that my glorious high scores weren't being documented so I've been working with him to integrate a Supabase backed high score leader list. For sure the project I'm having the most fun working on.
Umbrella Report - I continue to poke at my local news front page. I've got a lot of ideas for this, but for now I'm just bringing in the data and trying to find different ways to look at it.
lobbler (Like a scrobbler) - I've got a little gateway between YouTube Music and last.fm, although when I got about 25% of the way finished I realized that neither side's data was particularly stable and I wasn't sure how I wanted to proceed. Still considering this, because it seems silly to not have a history of the music I'm listening to.
jb.com - fresh coat of paint - coming soon
What Now - Household oriented task management. I started this project in part to build the same front end interface in a few frameworks, it's unlikely to get to a stage where other people would use it.
PDXFTL - I've also started rebuilding the very dusty code I wrote to make our podcast website. My hope is that I'll be able to extract a sort of template for others to use to push their own shows sometime soon.

Cool Software

Having a desktop PC running Ubuntu has also provided me a few opportunities to play with some software as a consumer:

freshRSS - Self-hosted google reader that you can serve from a docker container, helpful as I'm trying to get back into the swing of keeping up to date on web development happenings in 2024. RSS! Wild.
EMBY - I like this Plex competitor a lot, but the Apple TV app is trash.
Signal - I was used to Apple devices that gave me access to SMS from my iPad or my laptop before, Signal does the same thing with the benefit of not having as much of my data go through Apple's servers. win / win!
tmux / neovim - Returning to the terminal with tools that are familiar but much more modern has been incredible.

joshua blount is all over the internet

Welcome

Returning to Web Development

No LinkedIn, No Resumé #

Why the pivot to video? #

Why change now? #

I'm all ears #