Sharpening the saw and scraping off the rust.

The holiday season is a strange time for professionals. The global economy has slowed, and people use unused vacation time to be with family and friends. It is a festive and frantic time. People eat and drink too much while they attempt to recharge for the New Year. I am in a different situation. I am migrating a blog to a different platform and navigating a job transition while dealing with the hustle and bustle of the holiday season. It is clear that I am being tested, and I want to write about it.  

A new home for the blog –

I used Google’s blogger tool for over ten years as a blogger. It served me well, but I felt I was not getting good enough penetration with search engines. It lacked a subscription service, and I wanted to try something different. I experimented with WordPress, and it was a mistake. For me, it was too complicated to access and set up pages. Finally, it was not displaying pages as outlined in the documentation. After a week of spinning my wheels, I broke up with WordPress. Instead, I tried Ghost and set it up on my Azure server. The Bitnami Ghost creation tool did not have SSL connections, and it created an entire virtual machine when a simple Web Application was sufficient. I am an intermediate developer and an Azure novice, so self-hosting Ghost is not a good option. Instead, I subscribed to Ghost Pro to host my site, which was an economical choice. I have all the entry-level features I need and do not have to fuss with server administration.

Migrating the blog –

Now that I had a new blogging platform, I had to start from scratch or migrate old content. I have plenty of good advice and recyclable learning objects on the blog, so I migrated old blog posts. I have over five hundred posts on the old location, so moving them over one by one took a lot of work.

Unfortunately, Ghost does not have a tool to import blogger content into ghost sites. Glancing over the web, I saw a need for more advice on how to do it. Confronted with a lack of good options, I began the one-by-one process of moving content over. I complained about it on social media, and an old friend from my early days as a scrum master suggested that I write my import tool.

The experience would allow me to practice dormant skills and save time in the long run. My high hopes collided with my development skills, and I struggled mightily for a day to remember how to do the basics of .NET Core 7 and MVC, but I toughed it out and began to regain confidence and shake off some of the rust. Soon, I had a plan.

1)      Read the Blogger JSON from Google v3 API.

2)      Deserialize it into objects so I can review it.

3)      Convert the objects into JSON Ghost can import.

4)      Use the Ghost import tool with the new JSON.

If I get it right, I would have over five hundred posts in an afternoon. As of the publication of this blog, I am still in the process of finishing a proof of concept. If it works, I will clean it up so others can use the tool for their application. In Stephen R. Covey’s book, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” I am sharpening the saw by practicing my development skills and solving a knotty problem. If everything goes well, I will retire my old blog and continue my online presence on the new platform.

Navigating change –

According to TechCrunch, almost a quarter of a million people lost jobs in the technology business. On December 1^st, I joined that population. It hurt emotionally, but from a rational perspective, I am surprised it did not happen sooner. Fear runs rampant in banking and consulting, even as the economy shows signs of recovery. People are afraid to spend money on projects or people, so my former company had to make hard choices and cut people loose.

My first instinct was to focus on getting back to work. I neglected to recognize the emotional process of mourning that goes into losing a job. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross outlines the stages of grief and denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. According to many people around me, this process of grieving is natural, but it does not follow a set pattern. Denial does not naturally flow into anger, and so on. Instead, you bounce around until acceptance becomes your natural understanding point. Currently, I am shifting between mild anger and depression while I move toward acceptance.

I had great relationships with my colleagues, and I was proud of the organization in which I worked. It also feels lonely as I attempt to make merry while looking for a new role. I am intelligent and determined, so I will get through this challenge and find a better place to help others and make a difference. The darkness will recede.

So, this holiday season is one of transitions both professionally and personally. I am migrating a blog, reacquainting myself with software development, and looking for a new career role. The process of scraping the rust off and sharpening the saw will prepare me for 2024.

Until next time.