I started this site as a place to keep my own work. Since 2017, it has moved between hosts, changed generators, and grown from a blog into a home for notes, thoughts, and pings. The domain and the writing came along for the ride.
This history runs from oldest to newest. It draws on repository records and my own recollections. Dates identify the records or events described, not necessarily the day a service went live or shut down.
2017–2020 A place of my own
The first version gave me a domain and a place to publish after a rough year in tech. The tools and hosting started changing almost immediately.
A domain and a blog #
May 2017
I registered the domain and started making content in 2017. The older
waylonwalker.github.io
repository has a CNAME for both site addresses, GitHub Pages enabled, and
Pelican configuration alongside a blog. It looks like the first version was
powered by Pelican on GitHub Pages.
A Gatsby rebuild #
January 2019
The waylonwalkerv2
repository is a Gatsby 2 site with waylonwalker.com as its homepage. It is
now labeled deprecated, though it kept receiving commits until 2023.
Archived spring 2019 experiments include
gatsby-starter-blog-forestry,
TestGatsbySanity, and
Netlify and Fauna demos.
They look like CMS and serverless trials around the main site, rather than
separate versions of the domain.
A new host #
By February 2020
I wrote that the site had been on Netlify for nearly two years. That puts the move from GitHub Pages around 2018, while the Gatsby rebuild was taking shape. The deployment writeup gives me a window, not an exact cutover date.
2021–2023 Making the tools
The site became a place to build the publishing machinery too. Markdown and frontmatter stayed with me even as the generator and host changed.
Markata takes shape #
March–June 2021
In March I started a new site built with Markata, the static site generator I
was making for myself. The first commit
is literally called init v3. I started collecting
notes
in the site repo that spring.
Another move #
By October 2021
My deployment writeup says I had moved from Netlify to Cloudflare Pages. The writing could stay in the repository while its home on the internet changed again.
Thoughts join the feed #
July–September 2023
The separate thoughts project started in July with a Fly.io configuration. In September I added the thoughts plugin to pull short posts into the site alongside longer articles.
The homelab joins in #
October–December 2023
The screenshot service was using Kubernetes by October. I started running Kubernetes at home in December. The main site still had another move ahead of it.
2024–2026 A basement home
More of the site’s supporting tools moved into the homelab. The generator changed again, but the collection of writing kept growing.
Media gets a home #
December 2024
Dropper began storing my media. It became another piece of the workshop around the site.
The site moves home #
January–September 2025
The homelab repo added a build job for the main site in January. I tried Forgejo in August, and by September I was building the site in Kubernetes. Cloudflare Tunnel now carries the self-hosted site out to the internet.
Pings arrive #
December 2025
Pings gave me another way to publish smaller bits while the idea is still warm. Notes, thoughts, and pings scratch a similar itch: get the thing out of my head and somewhere I can find it again.
Markata moves to Go #
January–April 2026
I began moving the site from Python Markata to Markata Go in January. A new home page took shape around the growing pile of posts and small updates. The migration branch landed in April, another chance to shape the machinery around how I actually write.
Thoughts joins the cluster #
May 2026
The homelab Argo repo added a Kubernetes application for thoughts. The service had stayed on Fly.io for years while the main site pulled its posts into the feed.
Gaps in the record #
The main site cutover #
The build job and September 2025 writeup narrow the move from Cloudflare Pages to the homelab to sometime in 2025. The exact day is still hiding.
The Fly.io shutdown #
The May 2026 Argo commit records a Kubernetes application for thoughts. It does not establish when the Fly.io service was shut down.
Reading the record #
This timeline combines commit history and repository metadata from the old GitHub site repositories, the Forgejo-hosted thoughts, Dropper, and shot-scraper-api projects, and the homelab and homelab-argo repositories. I cross-checked those with recollections in about this site, the deployment writeups, and the colophon. The 2017 starting point has both my recollection and the first domain repo behind it. Hosting cutovers are less completely recorded than code changes.