If you are reading this today, then I’d like to tell you congratulations! You may or may not be the very first person besides me to see this website - but you may also not be the first person. You might be the second, or third, or maybe even the 8th person. Probably not going to be any higher than eight people who have visited this site, and eight is really reaching - probably more like just us two who have visited…

HA! I crack myself up.

Welcome to the New and Improved GeauxWeisbeck4.dev (version 3.0)

If you are my parents, an ex who is still stalking me, or anybody else who has a remote interest in watching me build things with code over the years, you may not have realized that this is already the third version of my personal website, GeauxWeisbeck4.dev, but if you already knew this, then kudos to you.

The placeholder site that was up for the last couple of months only counts as version 2.5 because I used a starter template from the Astro website so I could have a place for people to land when they search for my domain. You can visit that site by clicking this link for the placeholder site and see what you missed! I’ve also included a screenshot of it so you don’t have to leave this page.

Now, I know that this site isn’t as pretty as my very first site was. And the second site really wasn’t that great, but I didn’t get the opportunity to sit and work on my portfolio like I do now. But I promise that this website will be the best one yet, once I get the chance to work out some kinks, polish it up, and get some feedback from people - there are definitely a lot more features and ideas I have for this project.

You can visit the project page on GitHub here and also my Asana Sprint Board here to see what is being worked on and where you can help when you get the chance - hehe, I’m only kidding about that. But you can certainly feel free to pick up an issue or report something that’s buggy if you want to use this site as a template or contribute to the project. I always love collaborating on open source projects and try to keep all my projects open source.

Motivation and Goals for Project

So one of the motivating factors for this project was that I had quite a poor personal portfolio website for quite some time because I wasn’t able to code as much as I wanted to for a while, due to the circumstances of my life. I got stuck with a piece of shit site because I developed it kinda like this one - on the fly, and I never got a chance to spend time on the layout and design of things so it looked bad.

The site didn’t have much personality, but even worse than that, it was extremely boring. Sure, you could find a few projects listed on some card components and a few blog posts that possibly contained lorem ipsum, but they weren’t maintained or kept up to date with the work I’ve been doing over the years freelancing and learning.

So developing 3.0 as a more functional digital garden type of personal portfolio site was important to me - important enough it has taken me since probably about July to figure out what I wanted to do with this bad boy. I actually have spent only about 4 or 5 of those weeks actually working on this version you are visiting today.

I should have been done even earlier than that but I got hit by a car a couple weeks ago… long story. I’ll write a post about it later on. But other than this last month or so, I probably tried about 12 different designs that I just didn’t vibe with - and I wouldn’t even say that I’m totally vibing with this site until I get some more things done and polish it up.

Digital Garden Functionality, GeauxWeisbeck4 Personality

Since I’ve learned about digital gardens, I’ve been somewhat obsessed with finding cool digital garden sites on the web and admiring the way that each creator is able to show their personality in the design and in their content. Not only is it cool to have your own little corner of the internet where people can see you working in public, but you get to control all of your content that everyone sees, the way its presented, and what features it will have to make you the raddest gardener on the web - hell even the name Digital Garden is f***ing cool.

Now here comes the sad part… I really haven’t maintained a public digital garden up to this point, basically defeating the whole point of a digital garden! I’ve created about 50 different variations of “digital gardens” on my personal computer, using tools like Obsidian, Log Seq, Trilium, Notion, Dendron, Roam, and plenty of other knowledge applications out there.

They all get organized nice in neat, in order of the directory structure I decide on. A notes catalog, projects, evergreen content, content, and my favorite resources - but only for me haha. I swear this isn’t intentional, but is a symptom of a few things going on for me.

First of all, as I mentioned earlier, I was hit by a car a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been in a lot of pain and it’s been stressful trying to figure out how to deal with the pain and figuring out the legalities of the accident. I have a fractured cheekbone, hematoma blood bruising on my ribs, more tissue damage pretty much everywhere, stitches in my forehead and ear, and other stuff - if you want to help out, feel free to check out my donation page on this site.

Secondly, I have spent almost two years trying to get my life back to normal with my fiance, and it has been really challenging, especially in the mental health category. I’ve been trying really hard to get a programming job, but with everything going on it has be difficult for me to create content due to the way I feel and the fact that I sometimes don’t have any time to do what I need to do on certain days.

Since I lost my job a few years ago and then we had a bunch of not really fair things happen in regards to our housing, it has been pretty much impossible to get life back to normal in any way. It’s not for a lack of trying either - my entire focus and energy go into trying to get housing and a decent job, but there have been a lot of setbacks that have been out of our control.

For example, getting hit by the car really screwed things up and I was actually feeling good about the way my job search was going. I tried working at Walmart but they treated me really shitty cause I was homeless, plus $15 an hour just isn’t gonna cut it for finding housing right now and I can do better than that with a degree and my skills.

I won’t get into the list of shit that’s happened right now - that is for another time on my other publication I’m starting, WeisMind. But I did want to share what my current daily life entails since this is my personal portfolio site and digital garden I share with the world.

You will learn more about what I’ve been going through over time, but for now I want the focus to be on the excitement of this website and that hopefully it can help me find a job as a developer. Which brings me to…

If Your Hiring, Need a Website/App, or Know Someone Hiring - Contact Me Right Away!

I have spent the last four years working in cybersecurity, learning everything about programming, computers, and design, and also doing a little freelancing work when I can. I promise you that I am one of the hardest working people you will ever meet and you probably won’t find a person who loves to read and learn and create as much as I do.

Programming has been so important to me these last four years and I so badly want to pour my attention and soul into a job that will help me afford the basics I need to get my life back on track. I seriously would love a job that I have to work my ass off because I already do work my ass off, just not for much money at all!

When I get the opportunity, I will sit at my laptop and work for two days straight without sleeping. But I often get interrupted by the craziness of my life and this lifestyle has continuously set me back in my job search, which has been extremely frustrating and at ttimes, disheartening.

But I refuse to give up - I am a tough gritty dude who will do whatever it takes to put myself in a position to do the work I need to do. If you don’t know me yet, you’ll learn this about me over time.

Thanks for Stopping By - Subscribe to My Newsletter!

I don’t want to ramble on much longer, so I am going to wrap up this blog post for now. The best way to stay on top of everything that I’ve got going on is to subscribe to my newsletter, add me on LinkedIn, Mastodon, Threads, or Instagram. I am going to be better about keeping all those things updated, as well as this digital garden.

I want to show potential employers, my fellow developers, and potential clients what I’m capable of and show everyone that I have what it takes to help your company or business thrive. I have a positive attitude, love to solve problems and learn, and am resilient in the face of adversity and letdowns, which is important in life.

Stay tuned for more and subscribe to my newsletter! Adios for now!