My First Article

My first article! I've spent a bit of time setting this up, but hopefully it looks good as is right now. This blog is being built via Zola, and you can see all of the code for this blog here. Feel free to submit an issue if you have trouble viewing this blog or want to fix something in one of my templates.

I've created this blog in the hopes that it will be a more suitable vector for sharing my thoughts here on a variety of subjects. Writing a little bit more formally is always good practice, and more often than not it's a better method of expression than other forms of communication. It always seemed like when I would jot my ideas down on random notes of paper that something would get lost in the translation from mind to pen. That goes the same for when I'm articulating an idea in person or over Discord or the like.

Not that those methods are bad, of course. There's always an appropriate time and place for those kinds of things, but I want this blog to be a bit more special.

And so, whichever way you landed here, whether by checking my online profiles or through my resume or portfolio, welcome. I will probably be writing about a number of my passions and interests here, both of which may be either more oriented towards the technical side, or more towards the personal or creative side.

About Me

My real name is Allen, but you may often see me under the handle "grey" or "fairingrey". Originally that handle was supposed to be limited to all my anime-related activities, but one thing led to another, my second github account took off, and now here I am. Most of the material you'll see here, whether it be blogging or code, will be hosted through this account. I'm reserving my other github account for more academic material if so the time comes. Won't be linking it here, but if you're that interested, you would probably be able to find it.

As of writing this post, I'm a open-source developer and freeter looking for a job within the industry. I graduated from San Jose State University on January 2017 following the end of the Fall 2016 semester, with a B.S. in Computer Science and a 3.7 GPA. I'll be taking about that stuff in a future post, but for now, let's just say some things happened which hindered me from finding a job straight out of graduation, and so I've worked on my own for a bit to make up for that deficiency.

Most of my knowledge in the field of Computer Science is mostly related to web development -- specifically backend web development. Why that came to be is mostly because of my pet project, an app and art-sharing platform called Mixini. It's changed over many iterations and design cycles, but it's partly the reason I know quite a bit about things like REST, microservices, the client-server model architecture, how document searches work, various image formats and encodings (including colorspaces!), and even a little bit of responsive web design.

Shamefully, I have nothing to show for it, but as Mixini starts to take shape again in a form I really like, built on top of web frameworks and libraries I really like, I'll definitely be able to link to it more confidently. For now, there is no code to show for it aside from a bunch of database schema design layouts and sketched-out endpoints (that mostly take inspiration from an existing service). But stick around my blog, and you'll see more about what it is.

I also like Rust a lot. Any project you see me working on will usually be with Rust unless it's not feasible with the language. If I'm going to be programming in my spare time, might as well be with a programming language I enjoy. Maybe more on that in a future post.

Outside of programming, I'm a huge weeb, keeping up with multiple anime, manga, and art websites, which is why I've linked my Kitsu in the sidebar. For those of you who don't know what Kitsu is, you can imagine it as sort of a anime community with built-in features to help track your library of watched and read material and also socialize with others. I personally don't use it that much aside from its' tracking capabilities, but I find it's a nice icebreaker. If you don't like that kind of stuff, don't worry -- I won't force it down your throat if you don't ask.

But it's linked there just for kicks, if you like to see what I do outside of programming. I even happen to translate Japanese H-manga in my free time. I'm part of two translation groups: Team Koinaka and Scrubs (inactive). I'm also a frequent contributor to Redlantern and sometimes help out smaller groups or individuals with stuff. I also used to translate some stuff for fun on booru, but I'll leave digging that stuff up to you.

I've never taken the JLPT, however. I have no intention of taking it anytime soon, as I want to focus on my software development career for the time being. Maybe in a few years I'll consider it.

My most liked genres of music would probably be electronic and rock music. Feel free to eavesdrop on my SoundCloud, it's linked in my Kitsu.

Honestly the best way to get to know me is to just talk to me. My Discord tag is grey#1386 if you care about that, and you are also free to email me any comments and concerns to my special developer email fairingrey@mixini.dev or fairingrey@gmail.com (pick your flavor, I read both). I also hang a lot around the Rust Community Discord, which you can find here. Just look for me in the wild, although I'll mostly be in the net-and-webdev and offtopic channels.

Wrapping Up

As I like to have a bit of fun, here's a song I'm listening to. I've actually been listening to Vincent's For You EP on repeat for a while, and I enjoy it a lot.

Have a good one. Look forward to my next post if you're sticking around.