Goodbye WordPress - Hello Jekyll

I recently came across the WordPress drama and realized I don’t need any CMS for features for a basic blog. I moved all of my content to Jekyll which is a static website powered by Ruby. I took advantage of the move, and moved away from my old host to get some experience with Vercel.

Streets Are for People - My Urbanist Transformation

This post is meant to bridge the gap between my past car centered content, and my new city/urbanist focused posts. First a little background:

Growing Up

I grew up in an automotive family. My dad and his brothers raced their Chevrolet Vega at various NHRA events around the country. As that wound down, my uncle opened a performance engine shop, C&S Performance. My dad has been the engine assembler there for most of my life. I attended races/car shows most weekends, and we made an annual pilgrimage to Indianapolis for the largest drag race of the year.

Side Projects: TrumpNewsDB.com, and PresidentTweety.app

I created a couple of web apps to analyze Donald Trump, and learn more about Azure services. While they are not complete, the election is looming, and I want to share them with anyone interested in using them.

Support Local Journalism

Despite the health risks, Wisconsin went forward with their Spring 2020 election today. After a short, distanced wait I was able to turn in our absentee ballots, and I spent the rest of my day following updates from the polling locations. It really reminded me how important it is to have good local journalists reporting our news.

Times are tough, and the news industry is facing hard times like everyone else. If you are able, I encourage you to support your local news sources.

The local news papers/sites I currently subscribe to include:

• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
• Urban Milwaukee
• Shepherd Express
• The Recombobulation Area

While I enjoy these, there are many other deserving local news sources in the Milwaukee metro. If you read a site/paper often, look in to what you can do to support them. Ads don't always cut it, and many companies are reducing their advertising spending.

In Person Elections During a Pandemic Is a Mistake for Wisconsin

It's been frustrating reading the news about the election in Wisconsin this Tuesday. Our governor Tony Evers has called for the election timeline to be delayed a month, and allow the entire election to be handled by mail, but Republican state representatives are pushing for it be held in person as scheduled. This is the wrong way forward as it encourages people to leave their homes , increasing the spread of Covid-19, and force people to choose between voting, or staying home as they need to do.