Les Miserablog

*sigh* The years, the waste.

After five years of this foolishness, I've decided finally to move on from this Blogger blog. It had been at least half-dead for a while, and now I'm merely promoting it to full-dead.

That's the short version. Here's the longer:

Blogger just isn't good enough for me anymore. No, it's not because the design and customization options are too limited. I'm no coder, even less so an artist. I don't know what to do with the options I've already got. This has always been a fairly unassuming personal blog, for which Blogger's simplicity has always been a fine fit.

The issue is that, especially since acquiring the Nexus 4, I've become quite invested in Google's ecosystem. I do email through Gmail, browse with Chrome, word process in Drive, keep my schedule on Calendar, and have even moved most of my music collection onto Play. I'm logged into my Google account at all times, and I love that, whether on my laptop or phone, I can conveniently access all my services without having to enter in my username and password every few minutes.

Given that Blogger is a Google service, you wouldn't think there would be an issue. Unfortunately, this blog of mine is associated with a Google account that I no longer use for anything else. And, unfortunately, Google offers no elegant way to transfer the blog over to my primary Google account. Thus, I'm logged into my primary account at all times, EXCEPT when I want to update my blog, and then I have to log in as a different user with an account that, frankly, I sometimes wish I could abandon altogether. I don't mean to exaggerate, as though it takes more than a few extra clicks or keystrokes, but it is nevertheless an inconvenience, which grows daily more irritating as I meanwhile grow to appreciate the simple conveniences of an interconnected ecosystem.

And there are other factors. Very rarely, I will post something that I will feel proud enough of to wish that I could show it to, say, a prospective employer. Only, if I did show them this blog, they would also see all sorts of other things I've written that would probably get me in trouble. So maybe it's time to make a clean break toward something more professional.

Really, the only thing that kept me from moving on sooner was that I have actually managed, over the years, to cultivate a modest readership here, which I would hate to leave behind and don't know if I would be able to duplicate at a new blog. But the reality is that the majority of my hits don't actually come from repeat readers but from random visitors stumbling here via search queries that, more often than not, my blog doesn't even help to resolve.

Still, if you've read this far, I want you to know that, in all sincerity, I truly do appreciate it. For a blog with no connections, and which I don't promote at all, the random reader comments have always been enormously gratifying, and I read and remember them all. It is, of course, such an encouragement to the ego to think that a complete stranger would take an interest in anything I have to say. So, once again, thank you so much for reading!

But, moving on toward tomorrow . . .

Miserable Pile of Secrets is nothing now! Another story must begin!