My first blog post!
Hey! The name’s Erick. This is my initial foray into using Pelican as a way to manage a ‘blog’. I’ve always intended to start one up but never quite committed. I’ve built my own pseudo-blog in Django, I’ve dabbled with Ghost, and I have extensive experience using Wordpress to build sites for others; Django was great, but it was a bit heavy for what I was intending on doing. It seems like a great way to build an application (with a blog maybe tacked on). Ghost was pretty, but I really just want stupid simple, and I want to be able to deploy my content on any server (not always possible). Wordpress is fine, but like Django, it doesn’t fit my use case. It has gone beyond a blogging platform and become something else entirely. At the end of the day, all I want to do is put my thoughts and experiences down on digital paper. Pelican seemed like a great choice because all it does is churn out static HTML pages. No databases are involved, no dynamic content, nothing to pollute the purity of my thought-forms (and not to mention less worries about security).
So, here we both are. You, reading my (not so) creative ramblings whilst I make rapid clacking sounds and try to make inspiration flow from my fingertips into the keyboard.
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Its a work in progress. Maybe a little bit of my background would help?
I’m Erick Diaz! I’m a Junior at Utah Valley University. I’m pursuing a degree in Software Engineering from the School of Technology and Computing (sounds official right?).
I am currently employed at Template of Doom/Gearshift Technologies and I fulfill both the roles of Developer and Systems Administrator. During my tenure here, I have been exposed to a myriad of different ideas, methodologies, and ways of doing things; it has frankly been a little overwhelming, but its also been incredibly fulfilling. I feel that I’m challenged every day at work; sometimes I even get tossed into the deep end and outside of my comfort zone. However, I like to remind myself that because of these harrowing experiences, I’m actually learning. In my short experience I’ve found out first hand that knowledge really is power, and in the tech industry even more so. And it isn’t necessarily that I want the edge to compete (to some extent I do), I want to be better than I was; I hate feeling ignorant or helpless, and I definitely take a hands-on approach to most tech tools and concepts. Prior to working at Template of Doom, I worked as a Level 2 Tech Support Engineer at Bluehost. It was a good experience overall and definitely exposed me to some very important concepts (I didn’t know what ports were!). I can’t say that it was my favorite, but I also can’t say that I like tech support work or work where every minute of my day is inspected and scrutinized.
Before that I worked at Lowe’s mixing paint, before that I worked as networking technician for a local small business, and finally before all of that, my first job was being a repair technician at a vacuum and sewing machine shop. The majority of my work experience has involved problem solving to some extent. This is a pretty strong indicator to me that I’m addicted to the immense feeling of satisfaction I get when I figure something out.
I work with all sorts of tools, languages, and technologies on a daily basis so I can’t say that I am incredibly partial to one or another; I believe that there exists the right tool for the right job. At the moment I primarily work in the sphere of web development so I am most familiar with web technologies (LAMP, LEMP, & MEAN stacks, JavaScript, HTML, etc) I would say I’m more comfortable in the back end of a stack taking care of function, but I am competent at front end development and can make a useable and user friendly interface.
On a more personal level, I am an avid reader, an armchair philosopher, a Linux aficionado, an advocate of FOSS, a video game enthusiast, and a lover of dogs. I live in the heart of Utah and love every second I get to spend in its various peaks and deserts.
I can’t really say what the content of this blog is going to be like, or how often I will have the ability to write. There will probably be musings and thoughts on various technologies, maybe a tutorial about a cool tool I found, case studies about things I have built, and maybe some content that has nothing to do with tech interspersed between all of that. I don’t want to limit this blog too much. I can say I probably won’t talk about religion or politics; passions run high with both of those topics and I’d rather not spark internet fights. Those types of conversations happen best in person and with a level head.
I know right now I’m really just writing to a non-existent audience, but if you have taken the time to read this and don’t hate me, thanks!