The Monk Persists

I built this blog on Thanksgiving Day, 2005. From scratch. In a single afternoon.

That first version is likely something archaeologists of the early internet might excavate from a dead server farm somewhere. Remember, this was before Facebook. Before Twitter. Before we were all gently coerced into becoming “content creators,” feeding platforms whose names would eventually become verbs.

Back then blogging was its own ecosystem. Independent. Slightly nerdy. Sometimes thoughtful. Often opinionated. For some weird reason, I wanted in.

On that first day I explained how I came to call myself “TechnoMonk.” The name originated with a friend who once observed that my home furnishings were distinctly Spartan, while my investment in cameras, computers, and sound equipment was anything but. The term stuck; I’m still a gadget enthusiast.

The original blog was hosted by Blogger.com, and lived on a Comcast server under the domain technomonk.us. It was free, which seemed appropriate for what was then essentially a self-indulgent side project. Over time I discovered that “free” came with aesthetic constraints, sketchy support, and documentation that was likely composed by a tech guy with limited social skills. After almost a year of muttering at the screen, I decided to move on.

In October 2006 I adopted the domain technomonksmusings.com and migrated everything to Squarespace, where it has remained ever since. That first transition was not seamless. Files were exported and imported; some did not survive the journey. Lessons were learned. Patience was tested. A few agonizing weeks passed.

Eventually the site settled into Squarespace’s v5 platform, where it has lived for many years. The design remained largely unchanged. I described this to myself as “clean and timeless.” It may also have been “aging quietly.” At this point, my blog is older than many current, well, “influencers.”

What changed over time was my understanding of what this space represented. What began as a modest vanity project gradually became something more substantial: a personal archive. It now contains reflections on work, institutional politics, relationships, travel, aging, grief, loss, rejection, existential angst, and yes, a fairly steady stream of complaints. I have never curated commentary particularly carefully.

Version 5, however, has reached its twilight. Support is minimal. Editing began to feel like maintaining a museum exhibit devoted to mid-2000s web design. So the choices became clear: let it fade away, archive it imperfectly, or migrate again.

I remembered 2006. The mere thought made my shoulders tighten. Migrating to Squarespace 7.1 would preserve the content, but the site itself would need rebuilding. Every post would require reformatting. One. By. One. Add in the predictable dry eyes from too many hours at a screen, and it all began to feel like a full-contact sport.

And yet, here we are.

The transition is complete. The layout is cleaner. The font is slightly larger, which my fellow senior citizens should appreciate. Underneath, the structure is sturdier and far less temperamental.

Two domain names. Three platforms. Twenty years.

Not bad for something launched on a whim in a sparsely furnished home office with just my computer and one crazy idea.

So: thank you for stopping by, whether you’ve been here since 2005 or arrived somewhere along the way. I can’t promise frequency. I can promise that when something feels worth saying, it will appear here.

The Monk persists.