From 30e453fadc75023e72e1ca56c4a4a37a9a08bf3b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Dustin Thurston Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2026 16:56:32 -0400 Subject: [PATCH] finish writing blog post --- blog/is_this_thing_on.md | 66 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++---------- 1 file changed, 50 insertions(+), 16 deletions(-) diff --git a/blog/is_this_thing_on.md b/blog/is_this_thing_on.md index 83d31d3..04e6d5e 100644 --- a/blog/is_this_thing_on.md +++ b/blog/is_this_thing_on.md @@ -1,7 +1,7 @@ --- title: Is this thing on? description: My first blog post -pubDate: "2026-07-29T00:00:00-04:00" +pubDate: "2026-08-03T16:40:00-04:00" coverImage: "../src/assets/blogPhotos/is_this_thing_on_header.jpg" coverImageAlt: "The view from the top of Old Rag Mountain in Virginia" --- @@ -10,10 +10,10 @@ Hello, this is my first ever blog post! As a brief introduction, my name is Dustin. I grew up in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, acquired my bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Grand Valley State University in 2019, and I have since been a full stack software engineer for a little over 7 years now. I initially -kicked off my career at Ford Motor Company, before landing at Zenimax Online -Studios in 2023, where I made various tools that supported development of Elder -Scrolls Online. Unfortunately, in July of 2026 I was laid off as part of a 1600 -person reduction in force imposed by Microsoft. +kicked off my career at Ford Motor Company, before landing at ZeniMax Online +Studios in 2023, where I made various tools that supported the development of +Elder Scrolls Online. Unfortunately, in July of 2026 I was laid off as part of a +1600 person reduction in force imposed by Microsoft. ## Unemployment @@ -23,23 +23,57 @@ have had since I was still a kid. I started working at 14 or 15 years old and really haven't stopped since, and as of writing this I am 30 years old. That's quite literally half of my life where I haven't had much more than a week off of work, let alone so far over a month off from working. Even in college, I worked -part time each semester and went back home to work for a civil engineering firm -testing concrete, helping out the survey crews, or washing dirt. While I -definitely have always enjoyed hobbies that allow me to slow down, I've also -realized that I put a lot of my self worth into my career and the work that I -do. +part time each semester and went back home for the summers to work for a civil +engineering firm testing concrete, helping out the survey crews, and washing +dirt (not kidding, it's a real thing). While I definitely have always enjoyed +hobbies that allow me to slow down, I've also realized that I put a lot of my +self worth into my career and the work that I do. I don't think this is entirely +abnormal, I feel like a lot people do this. But I've been doing things that I +enjoy to try to regain some part of myself, which has been grounding and a +reminder to take the bad with the good. So far with this newfound free time, I have: - Applied to jobs - Unsuccessfully interviewed for a few jobs -- Hiked Old Rag Mountain in Virignia with my partner (Where the cover photo for +- Hiked Old Rag Mountain in Virginia with my partner (Where the cover photo for this post was taken!) - Spent some time on the beach with my partner while visiting her family -- Got to start diving into my ever growing backlog of games and movies -- Started going for walks every day -- Had the honor of being a pallbearer for an old friend of mine -- +- Started diving into my ever growing backlog of games and movies +- Been going for walks every day +- Had the honor of being a pallbearer for an old friend +- Taken lots of photos, some of which will be found on this site at some point + in the near future! But if you're interested, my photography is on Instagram + [@photos.dustycode](https://www.instagram.com/photos.dustycode/) or on Grain + [@dustycode.dev](https://grain.social/profile/did:plc:3ezyph3rwsv423umnyue5wfi) +- Reconnected with some old friends and family members +- Made some travel plans to have something to look forward to +- Finally taken the time to work on getting version 2 of my website deployed! +## This Website + +The site this post is deployed on is actually version 2 of my personal website! I still have the [original version](https://v1.dustycode.dev) up and running for -anyone interested. +anyone interested! That one was built with React and ThreeJS, originally hooked +up through EmailJS for the contact form, but someone ended up trying to use it +to send spam mail. I think it was mostly an implementation error on my part, but +I just disconnected it as I was already planning to build a newer better version +of my personal site anyways. + +This website is built with Astro and Bun with a React Island for showing my +currently playing or most recently played song on the home page. I have +analytics hooked up to [Umami](https://umami.is/) running on my homelab. I might +see what I can do to show some of that data the home page as well, since I +already have a bit of a dashboard layout going on. I will probably do a more in +depth write up for this site soon as I add more stuff to it. + +Oh! And if all goes well, this post should also be posted up to my PDS in +[The ATmosphere](https://atproto.com/) which I will be doing with +[sequoia.pub](https://sequoia.pub/). + +## Final thoughts + +To summarize, unemployment has its ups and downs, trying to make the best of it +but it is stressful nonetheless. I'm not sure if anyone is going to read this, +but if you do, feel free to hit me up on bluesky to tell me a random fact you +enjoy! I'm [@dustycode.dev](https://bsky.app/profile/dustycode.dev). -- 2.51.2