If you’ve visited jeff-sawyer.com before, welcome back! If not, welcome.

It’s been a while.

I didn’t stop blogging because I ran out of things to say. Quite the opposite, actually. Over the years I’ve had plenty of ideas that never made it past a note, a bookmark, or a half-written draft.

Life got busy

Between work, raising two boys, and everything else that comes with family life, finding time for personal projects became more challenging. When I did have a free evening, spending it maintaining my website usually wasn’t how I wanted to spend it.

My old site was built with WordPress, and it served me well for many years. But over time, every new post started with thinking about the site itself - themes, plugins, updates, and maintenance - before I could get to the part I actually enjoyed: writing.

That’s not a criticism of WordPress. It solved exactly the problem I had when I first built the site. My priorities have simply changed. These days, if I find an hour to work on something personal, I’d rather spend it creating than maintaining.

Why Astro?

As a software engineer, I spend most of my professional life building applications with React and Angular. For this project, I wanted something different. I wasn’t looking for another application to build - I wanted a simple, fast website that would get out of the way and let me focus on the content.

That’s what led me to Astro.

The migration has been surprisingly enjoyable. Astro’s content-first approach feels like a perfect fit for a personal site. I can write in Markdown, organize everything in code, and still drop in React components when they make sense. It feels lightweight, modern, and low-maintenance - exactly what I was looking for.

Looking back

Moving the site gave me a chance to revisit some of my older posts. Reading them reminded me why I started blogging in the first place.

When I first started this site, I wrote about whatever interested me at the time. Sometimes it was React. Sometimes it was Netflix and cord-cutting, books, investing, home theater, or whatever problem I was wrestling with. I never really had a content strategy, and looking back, I don’t think I needed one. The best posts were always the ones that came from genuine curiosity.

This site has never been about a single topic. It’s always been about following my curiosity.

That thread still feels true today. I don’t plan on forcing myself into a niche. If I’m building something, researching something, or solving a problem, there’s a good chance it’ll end up here.

What’s next?

Hopefully, a lot more writing.

Some days that might mean technical deep dives into Astro, React, Angular, TypeScript, or AI. Other times it could be a Godot game I’m building, a smart home experiment, an interesting business idea, an investment I’m researching, or a book that changed how I think.

More than anything, I want this site to become a place where I consistently create, experiment, and document what I’m learning - without the overhead of maintenance getting in the way.

Rebuilding the site started as an excuse to learn Astro. Somewhere along the way, I realized what I really missed wasn’t having a new website.

It was having a reason to write again.

Here’s to a fresh start.