catskull's adventures beyond the ultraworld
Alternate title: “Who Am I?”
Recently I was showing my website to a group of strangers and one of them asked me “But why? I don’t see the why.”
Why do I have this website? Why do I want to have a clean archive of a bunch of random Wikipedia articles I browsed at some point? Why do I have an entire page of just clouds?
Maybe it’s self importance. Is that pride? I guess somewhere inside of me I hope someone else finds this website and thinks “wow this guy is just the coolest ever” and send me an email that says “you are the coolest ever btw would you like a billion dollars?” But I’m also not an idiot, at least I try not to be, and I know the reality of that situation is slim. Well, the billion dollars part of it, but I do know that random people find this website.
I have two brothers and we have a group chat called “DeGrawtism” which is just too perfect to not call out. My little brother sent us a link to this insanely cool personal website マリウス.com↗ . As far as I can tell, it’s just one random person on the internet with a ton of random information. It feels vast and massive. You can easily get lost there for 30 minutes or more. There’s not a lot of context there, just a bunch of stuff someone is into. I think that’s the coolest thing of all time. There are easter eggs, surprises, and more information than most people have ever even thought to write down about themselves. They’ve got an FAQ that answers the question of “what”:
[This] is my personal, non-commercial website, where I post about software and hardware projects, where I collect various information for my own reference, as well as publish write-ups that I believe might be interesting to like-minded people. It is a website the way we understood websites to be, back in the 90s and early 2000s, before everyone and their dogs were online and the internet was destroyed primarily but not exclusively by big tech corporations, politics, more politics and AI slop.
This feels pretty much like it could be straight out of my own mouth, when describing catskull.net.
But it doesn’t really answer the “why?” Why do I bother?
Honestly, the simplest answer is just because this is who I am. I like having a website. I like blogging. I like writing down thoughts and publishing them on the internet. A friend recently put me on blast in the group chat by referring to me as “Drummer, writer, internet enthusiast.” Is that such a crime??? Sue me!
A big part of my motivation is that I want to keep a record of my time here on the Earth. Maybe that’s the next answer: Because I can. I can have a website. I can read it later. I can cringe at the cringe and laugh at the laughs. It’s fun. What do other people do for fun?
Who am I?
My name is Dave and at the time of writing I’ve been around the sun 34 times. That feels like a good age to me, but I’m not sure why. I think the concept of keeping a pet is a bit unbelievable. I think if dogs are allowed on airplanes then smoking should also be allowed. Not that I think we should allow smoking on airplanes, but it just seems insane to me that a dog can fly through the sky. That goes for other pets too. When I was a kid, we had a dog named Mr but he kind of scared me.
I grew up mostly in Saint George, Utah. My family moved around a bit, but I’ve lived in Saint George for most of it and it’s where I live now. We lived in Henderson, Nevada (Las Vegas) for a few years but nowadays I think I’d rather take a bullet than have to go to Las Vegas for literally any reason. Everything is dirty, people are crazy. I definitely don’t think that the free sale of liquor is a good thing for your local community. In fact, if it were up to me, I’d reinstate the prohibition. Sometimes I go to the gas station to get a drink or a snack and it absolutely blows my mind to see how much alcohol people buy. Frankly, it makes me sad. I’ve been around a decent amount of substance use, and alcohol is by far my least favorite substance to be around. That said, I’ve also never actually tasted any so maybe they’re all on to something. My poison of choice is soda, specifically Dr. Pepper and I drink way way too much. At this point I’m up to like 4 cans a day, sometimes more. I used to have a mini fridge in my home office but it was incredibly loud so I just drink it room temp. I have a water cooler in here too, but I don’t drink enough of it.
I’ve historically had fairly low self esteem which I think limited my ability to connect with other people. It’s still not the greatest and makes me overly defensive. I’m also fairly direct with people, intentionally or not which can come off as meanness. I can’t hide my feelings very well. I’m working on it, more just becoming comfortable with not being flawless all the time.
From a very early age I was attracted to the idea of playing the drums. I’m not sure why I just thought it was cool. I took piano lessons for a while in grade school, I even wrote a song about pickles. Finally in 6th grade I signed up for the percussion class at school and really enjoyed it. Shortly after that I got a drum set for Christmas and started taking lessons and I’ve never really stopped playing. I mostly play “rock” music. In middle school I joined a ska band with some older kids and we had a lot of fun writing songs, playing shows, and even recording a little EP/demo. I wouldn’t necessarily say I still listen to much ska music. I still do listen to a ton of music. I really like anything that’s even a little bit psychedelic. I realized that this has actually always been true. As a young lad I’d listen to the oldies station for The Byrds or The Mamas and The Papas. I didn’t really know anything about that but I just liked to. I remember hearing Twist and Shout for the first time in my Cub Scouts’ leader’s van and it just totally blew my mind, I thought it was the greatest thing I’d ever heard. I still really like The Beatles and I totally think they should get back together. A couple of years ago I built my own electric drum kit by buying a few cheap kits off amazon and stripping them all down and installing sensors and everything. I’ve had a ton of fun with it because I can just go straight into Logic Pro which has a ton of really excellent sounding virtual drum kits and I can even hit record and work on little jams and stuff. I haven’t been doing that quite as much extremely recently, though. I did join a local community concert band a few months ago and I go practice with them once a week. It’s kind of strange to play with a conductor and a full band like that but it’s been fun. I’ve enjoyed being able to play a real acoustic kit in that setting. We have a concert coming up in a few weeks that should be fun, if not a little scary. I’m not going to lie to you, I think we sound kind of bad. It’s just a volunteer community band full of random people of all skill levels. I’m not very good at reading music, but I think I’m getting the hang of it. The other week the bass player came up to me and basically said “Your timing is all off, it’s not possible to follow you and the conductor”, but to be honest with you he’s not that good either and at nobody else has really said anything hahaha. I think for what it is, it’s fine. Some of the songs I’m good at, others I struggle more.
I guess I’m writing this down just in case you find it interesting. I’d rather not make assumptions about what you might find interesting. Worst case scenario you close the tab.
My family was fairly tech-oriented growing up. My mom used some crazy program that would tell her which coupons to collect for the maximum savings. She had a couple of people in the neighborhood who would save their junk mail for her to clip coupons out of. My dad was an attorney and also kind of a computer enthusiast as well. We always had a family PC. Later, we got an internet connection. I grew up playing a lot of video games and I was always interested in computer programming. In high school I took some introductory programming classes and learned a bit of C++, HTML, and CSS. Later I got a job building the website for a local business. I’ve been employed doing full-time, professional web development since at least 2013. I had a few gaps while I went to school and quit my job to be a substitute teacher, but that’s just always been my thing. I’ve learned a lot. I feel like I’ve never really been a total super star at programming, but I’m also not the worst and I have some social and leadership skills that help me organize and motivate a team to do some good work. I’m not really sure what success in a career really even looks like, but I do think I’ve been pretty successful. I think at all my jobs I’ve done decently at least, I’ve never been fired or laid off (yet). I really like the internet as a concept in terms of information exchange. I get anxious when I see how integrated the real world has become with the online world. It seems like everywhere I go, the computer system is down or having problems. I always joke that it’s actually my fault, that I’m cursed and it just follows me around but if I’m being totally honest I think the vast majority of software is basically half-functional garbage. Try to think of the absolute best software you’ve ever used. What is it? It seems like not even Apple or Google knows how to make good software anymore. Well, maybe something like Ghostty is truly excellent software but it’s also quite limited all things considered. I do have some of the existential dread that the rise of LLM tools seems to be causing most people involved in the software world. I don’t have the answers. I guess I am choosing to not worry too much about it. Did the rise of high-level languages reduce the amount of programmers in the world? Did it increase the quality of our software? Or did it just kind of “change”… something. Is Windows 11 fundamentally better than Windows 98? Is my computer today functionally superior to my first MacBook back in 2013? Is airline ticketing today operationally more efficient than the first IBM mainframe back in the 70’s? What role does technology actually play in the real world? I like to consider that the human control of fire is actually a form of technology. But computers? I’m not sure. It’s a way more efficient way to store and transmit data around, but I also don’t know if it’s really all that more reliable than a room full of filing cabinets and a clerk who’s job it is to deal with it all.
I’ve been married to my wife since 2013. We have 4 kids. Raising children is the most intense, challenging, exhausting, fun, rewarding, thing I’ve ever undertaken. In a lot of ways I feel like a failure as a parent more than a success. I wish I had more energy to do “good parent” things, but I’m also not sure what that is. I guess I could sit and read to my kids for hours instead of write this blog post. I think I can make positive change in my life and slowly become more of the person I want to be, but right now I just really want to do this. I could be at a playground with them, or doing crafts, but I also don’t really like to do those things very much. If I didn’t have kids, I would literally never go to the playground. With kids, I go to the playground sometimes. I’m telling myself that’s good enough. Maybe some day they’ll read this blog post and it will help them somehow. I like hanging out with my kids. Right now I’ve got two of them here with me and they’re playing this hilarious augmented reality game on the 3DS called “Face Raiders”. I guess I would say I like doing things “around” my kids more than I like doing things “with” them. Honestly isn’t that a lot of what having relationships is like? Maybe there are some super couples out there who share literally every hobby and interest, but that’s just not my vibe. My wife actually has vastly different interests than I do. She likes to play volleyball, I have such little interest in any kind of competitive team sport it’s not even funny. I do like watching her play though, but it’s also frustrating to me when they lose hahaha. She likes Brandon Sanderson audiobooks and frankly I think Sanderson is like half a step above Marvel fandom (please don’t hate me for that). I like to have things neat, orderly, tidy, and clean. She like to just go, go, go. I don’t really think our differences make us weaker though, I think they make us stronger, but it does cause friction. But I also think that’s okay. Optimizing for lack of friction to me feels like a vanilla and boring life. My favorite time to be with my kids is when they’re sleeping. With the exception of my oldest who’s kind of starting to grow out of it, I like to lay in bed with my kids. Every night I lay with my kindergarten son until he’s asleep, and then most nights I lay with my third grade daughter since she usually falls asleep way later than my son.
One of my favorite times of the day is when I drink my milk. I just really love drinking milk. I usually have a big giant class of milk every night. I actually think it helps me sleep. I love ice cold milk, but our fridge usually can’t keep up with 6 people leaving it wide open for 15 minutes all day so it’s usually just kind of cold-ish. Sometimes I get a fresh gallon from the garage fridge that stays a lot colder and it hits so hard. Generally speaking I really like dairy foods. I like cheese a lot. I like my time at night after everyone is asleep to just have my own quiet time. Sometimes I’ll watch a show. A year or two ago I bought this crazy ViewSonic 4K projector and pull down screen for my office and I’ve got a nice chair to sit in. I’ve got an Apple TV hooked up to it and I like being able to hook up my AirPods to it so I can watch it without disturbing anyone. I really like the concept of anime, but usually the shows just go on for way too long. I generally find the Japanese dub/English sub version preferable, but it’s also more work than an English dub and you can’t second screen it. A lot of times I’ll play a handheld game while I watch a show.
I don’t read as much as I probably should. I like to read Wikipedia mostly, but I feel like I’d be a lot better off if I read an actual book every now and then. I have a bit of a conundrum because I really prefer to read on my phone using the Apple Books app. I’ve got a good system for getting ebooks and I like basically always having my book with me without any extra effort, but I get self conscious because as far as I can tell, reading a book on your phone and reading Twitter or watching TikTok appears to be about the same activity to an observer. I don’t want to just always be on my phone. It’s honestly a bit of a pet peeve of mine when you’re in a group of people and everyone is just looking at their phones. I think it’s especially a problem with older generation people, but it might just be confirmation bias. Because of that, I don’t read on my phone as much as I want to, but I’m also not really going to carry around a physical book or a kindle. When I do read, it seems like it’s usually young adult fiction or biographies. Maybe I should set a goal to just get through more books.
I really love a good in depth conversation. I really like to dig in and see where someone is coming from. It can be hard to get people to open up enough to really engage my attention. It seems like most people don’t really like being analyzed, but that’s just how my brain works. I think my favorite way to learn is by just talking with an expert. I actually think that’s a bit lazy but it’s just how I like to do it. That’s a big reason why I started my podcast, Interrobang, just to give me an excuse to have a conversation with people. It’s been a while since I have done an episode, though. I was super into it for a while, I stomped through 17 episodes and then I quit my job and shifted priorities and kind of got distracted. I’d still like to start it up again but it seems like time is at a premium these days. If I’m honest too I’m a bit self conscious about my podcasting skills. I do like listening to it but I also feel like I talk to much and don’t ask enough interesting questions. I guess I feel a little bit bad for my guests, like I’m not serving them very well. Maybe I’ll get better and try again, or maybe I’ll just give up on it. Who knows!