Jacob Desch

What's All This Then?

Look. I'm tired. I've been professionally making things for screens for 19 years. Unprofessionally—even longer. Regardless, those 19 years have been...exhausting.

So when I set out to actually build the 3rd version of my "personal" website (after countless others that never made it past a single artboard in Adobe Illustrator), I wanted to do it my way. No unnecessary JavaScript framework that I'll pour hours into learning, only to be obsolete in 5 years. No bloated, dumbed-down content management system. No bullshit marketing jargon that no one but me understands. None of this bullshit. And for the love of God, no content that fades in and animates slightly upward as you scroll.

Just a few stats about me, a soothing timelapse video I took of a particularly stormy afternoon here in beautiful Portland, Oregon and that's it. Contact info? *shrug*. Like I said...tired.

Behind the stats for those interested:

• Rider of 1720 Miles to Nowhere: Integration with RunKeeper through a make.com scenario that reads data from FitBit, that reads data from Peloton (Ugh, I know...) and writes mileage to a database as I complete a ride. It's complicated, but it seemed unnecessary to learn an entire API just to brag about how "far" I've "ridden."
• Runner of 1858 Miles in Circles: Integration with RunKeeper through a make.com scenario that writes mileage to a database as I complete a run. I used to run. I hope to again someday, if my knees/ankles/feet/willpower will cooperate.
• Reader of Sure, I'll Join Your Cult: Sometimes I read. Mostly I don't. No integration or API necessary. When I'm reading a new book, I update it in the database manually. The fact that I'm manually updating a database should tell you how little I read. And let's be honest, by "read", I probably mean "listen to the audiobook".
• Watcher of The League: A simple webhook from Plex that pings an address on my site anytime I finish watching something and writes the result to the database.
• Aspiring World Record Holder: Oh, it's gonna happen. Just you watch...
• Father of 2, Husband of 1: At the end of the day. This is the one I care about. If all this other crap goes away, at least I should still have this one. This is where my priorities lie and if push comes to shove, this one should win. Always.

In the immortal words of my grandmother when she was done talking on the phone and wanted to hang up,

"That's all I know."