Less Digital Clutter

If you receive this blog’s weekly newsletter, you know my website has been down for a few weeks while I transferred it to a new host. The wild idea came to me just before leaving for our trip in April. I was looking for the easiest way to post while we were away, and the host of my site at that time didn’t have many options. I almost tried to move it before we left. Thankfully, I didn’t think I had the time because I didn’t. This project was a lot more involved than I anticipated. It seems getting rid of digital clutter is a long, involved process.

I started my blog in 2008 as a way to easily share the photographs I was taking of kids at high school sporting events. It evolved into a personal blog, and for several years, I posted daily. As of May 1, I had shared 3,008 posts. Averaging out the length of the posts, I’m estimating 1,052,800 words. I guess I had a lot to say.

Transferring a blog and website is simple: download the content from the old host and upload it to the new one. It sounds easy, right? Well, not so much. Because of the number of posts on my blog, the file was 4x larger than the usual upload. Once we (chat support and I) finally managed to get it all on the new site, the posts looked terrible. There were broken links, displayed code and the photos were all messed up. It was a disaster. The thought of cleaning up each post individually was overwhelming. I cried a little, hyperventilated, ate some chocolate and went to bed. This was a catastrophe. I hardly slept that night.

But I did sleep, and the sun came up the next day. I had the thought, what if I just started from scratch? That wasn’t unimaginable. It was the easiest way to reduce digital clutter. The most significant writing had already been published in books. Hey Kid and The Commentary Project.

Transferring the posts since January 1, 2024, and starting fresh wouldn’t be a big deal. Would anyone even notice? Probably not. I even asked my kids if they’ve ever searched for content on my blog. They hadn’t (and neither had I.) Once I started the process, I decided not to bother with the stuff since January 1. (With the exception of the posts from our trip to Poland, Prague and Germany.) Theoretically, I still have access to most of the content if I ever want to pull it. I just can’t imagine that I will.

So, welcome to the new and improved kellirocha.com – I have some more testing and tweaking to do. (Many of you saw my test posts that accidentally went to the social media channels.) As the site’s content grows, I can add more features. But for now, it’s up and running, and I can get back to the most essential task: writing the next 1,000,000 words.