Why?

Social media sucks. I try to not evangelize my message too much because I understand that can be obnoxious, but it sucks. I think it’s ruining people far beyond what we realize. Just last week, a US court ruled that Meta (and other major media platforms) will be subject to thousands of lawsuits over intentionally getting children addicted to social media. Unbridled crony capitalism creates greedy monopolies intentionally causing harm to people? Shocker!!! I think it brings out the worst in people, divides us, and helps large corporations stay in power by embroiling regular people in meaningless culture wars that distract us from real issues.

With that being said, the Internet is pretty damn cool. The ability to easily connect with people regardless of geographic location is something that shouldn’t be co-opted and abused by large tech corporations. This website is my attempt to share some of my writing, pictures, and generally just express myself.

Inspiration!

I’d be remiss to not mention the several other sites that inspired this one.

Throughout my time mountaineering/climbing/exploring, I came to love several clunky 90s/early-2000s sites. Chief among these is Bob Burd’s trip reports website. I won’t wax poetic about my love for that man, but he is something of a cult hero in California/Sierra Nevada peakbagging circles, and has inspired dozens and dozens of my own adventures. I appreciate how straightforward and simple his site is. It brings me back to a time when the Internet was a bunch of nerds sharing their nerdy hobbies. Other nostalgic climbing sites include climber.org, listsofjohn.com, californiamountaineer.net, boulter.com, and Steven Song’s site.

It’s also sort of trendy among indie musicians to leave social media and return to the nostalgic era of geocities-style websites. There are several, but I particularly like Karly Wednesday’s prisondivorcebombshell.com, and King Tuff’s kingtuffworld.net. You will undoubtedly see design similarities between these sites and mine. At times, I ripped them off completely. Imitation is the highest form of flattery, or something like that.