So, why make a website?
It's a reasonable question. Originally, I was planning on writing this blog on some blog site or another. However, all of the ones I was looking at had aggressive monetization models, with only the ugliest themes available for free and a steep monthly fee for anything that looked half decent. Of course I could have forked over a few bucks, kept the site up for the months I was writing in it, and then stopped paying, but I really wanted to make something that would last a bit longer than that. I also really wanted to learn html.
Why the site looks the way it does, and why it took me so much time
I want to make it as clear as possible that I went into this knowing nearly nothing. It's true that I did try to learn html in the past, but this attempt was halfhearted and incomplete. This link will take you to a page of the old blog that I've copied the css for and brought into this site with the text I wrote replaced with a placeholder. It's ugly, isn't it? Bearing in mind that I forgot all of this in the year since I made it, this was the culmination of what I'd learned in the past. I understood how to change things like font and text color in the style box, and how to use a background image, and what element tags were, but I had no idea how to make more than one divider, how to place dividers side by side, how to make a navigation bar, how to use margins, and a number of other little things that all added up to what I have here. Now, I am under no delusion that the site as it is now looks stunning. It certainly doesn't look very professional. But considering where I started from, I'd say it looks pretty good. It did take me many hours and a lot of frusturation to get it to look like this, though. There is a lot of syntax to learn to html, and the code won't work if even one character is out of place. As for why the site looks the way it does, I know that these colors probably aren't graphic-designer approved. However, they were all colors (and textures) that I personally like. I appreciate the old-school internet 90's charm that other amateur web developers have made on hosts like Neocities, and though I wasn't around during that era I thought I would try to emulate that same sort of aesthetic.
Why bother learning html?
Aside from the freedom it gives me to customize everything compared to pre-built cites, I did it simply for the joy of learning. Just because computers are now capable of doing this work by themselves doesn't mean it isn't worth the effort to do myself. When I tried going to a friend with a coding question, they told me to just ask chatGPT, and I found myself offended at the suggestion. I knew for a fact (I had seen them do it earlier ) that ChatGPT can make html webpages quite competently, but (and forgive me for soapboxing) I genuinely believe generative AI is evil. I know, I know. Every time new technology emerges there are people who cry that it means the end is near, and those voices always fade as we realize that the tech only makes our lives easier. With this tech in particular, though, I really despise the laziness it enables. Getting an AI to do something for you isn't the same thing as looking something up, or using tools like search engines that help you find the information you need more easily. It doesn't teach anything at all. I still think that there is a lot of value in learning things I don't absolutely need to, and I'm proud of what I've done with my own two hands.
Other Reflections
Besides the aforementioned coding, I learned a few things about picking topics for future projects and about what makes a good subject. Specifically, I learned that it's important to check that something has an interesting story that can be spun out of it BEFORE committing to the topic. I think I was able to tell a real story about the closing of Boxcar, but in terms of the longer piece on Morgenstern's I originally planned on writing, it turns out that there wasn't all that much to say. The narrative of a small business opening and then closing under the weight of corporate chain stores isn't fresh. It happens every single day, all the time. Though Morgenstern's is a fantastic book store and it is mildly interesting that they returned 25 years after closing, the original story of its closing proved to be rather mundane. This is likewise true for many of the closed stores I wrote about for the "In Memorium" section. They were open, people remembered them fondly, and then they closed. Sometimes bookstores are not the magical settings for adventures or romances that are in vogue to write novels about now. Sometimes, they're just stores. Regardless, I'm very glad that I took the time to explore my city and write what I have.