about

What’s all this then? Well, it started as a bit of an occasional blog and travel journal for a journey around the world in 2005… and, to be honest, remains very much that. Although now a fully fledged blog, notepad and general a-shouting’n'a-hollering place on the web for me to vent some spleen, the central tenet remains - I like travelling and seeing new things, and most of my blogging activity revolves around that.

So here it remains. Anything else? Well, I guess…

A bit of self promotion

Me! Stood a long way from Uluru in 2005

My name, unsurprisingly, is Pete. And admission time - I’m from Essex. And what of it? We’re not all the stereotypical lager swilling, baseball cap wearing, medallion and soverign ring touting hooded little feral shits, you know. Well, ok, Stella and caps maybe, but rings - no, not me at all.

Since mid 1999 I’ve been a web developer at a consultancy called The Group, based in the west end of London. We develop corporate websites, and although relatively small, produce a hell of a lot of excellent work (if I do say so myself). The usual disclaimer applies here however - this site is mine and mine alone, and doesn’t necessarily reflect the views of my employers.

Outside of work, I love nothing better than a quiet pint in an old fashioned pub. Sam Smiths? Just the ticket. Other than that, I love to travel. Not necessarily to anywhere in particular, you understand - it’s more the journey that I enjoy. Constant movement to new places is the usual theme of my holidays - never sitting on a beach if I can help it. There’s nothing more relaxing to me than a day long train ride through glorious scenery, or a long ferry ride to unexplored ports.

Dull, huh?

The name

Ok, so the whole travelling theme may tie in with the “nomad” thing quite nicely, but to be honest that’s a complete fluke. The truth is that when first getting access to the web at university, the labs and associated IT department were rubbish, so everyone tended to sign up to more reliable web-based email services. Well, just my luck - I managed to blindly wander between endless really crap web email providers. I must have had dozens of the bloody things over a period of about 3 years.

Once I got the web at home, in a fit of pique at having moved accounts so often, I signed up in highly ironic fashion (I thought) as “nomad pete”. At that point of course, everything settled down and I’ve ended up keeping the same crap email address ever since.

So, when the time came, there really was no other option than to register the domain as well. I am now brand “nomadpete” whether I like it or not.

Well, at least it does evoke my occasional travels. Better than “yahoo1114545″ I guess…

The journey

My thumb enjoying the Simpsons in Los Angeles, 2005

The site was really kicked off so I’d have somewhere to record an around-the-world trip I set out on in 2005. Given a 3 month sabbatical by those lovely people at The Group, I set off on a quick jaunt across America, around New Zealand, through Australia and Dubai, and back to London.

The blogs I wrote back then are still around in the archives on here, and there are hundreds of photos in the galleries to take a peak at. It was a truly fantastic experience - one that I’d recommend everyone do at least once.

The site I had back then wasn’t so fantastic, however (you can find it in the ‘previously’ section). It was bashed together in a couple of weeks as I was planning the actual trip - and looked it. Still, it did the job and allowed people to see where I was and what I was up to.

However, coming back to work as a developer, I quickly got fed up with the whole site. It was hacked together as I was just starting to learn PHP, and was trying to redevelop too much - building the whole wordpress system again because I couldn’t be bothered to learn the templating engine. The frontend code was extremely efficient, but at the cost of making maintenance rather awkward. I got tired of it, and so stopped blogging for an awfully long time.

The continuation

The web developer in me became louder, however. We’ve been developing code at The Group that is first rate, and has got orders of magnitude better over the years, to be something everyone can justifiably be very proud of.

Well, the disparity between the markup produced during the working week and the markup sitting on my site got to a point where I thought it would be a mockery to leave it there any futher. I mean, how can I call myself an experienced coder if my own site is so poor?

So, here we are. A nicely redeveloped site. Some new tech - AJAX powered comments, flickr stream, and Last.FM playlists; properly structured and efficient templates; a full tie-in to my galleries on flickr - and lots of other little embellishments and improvements.

As it’s now something I can bare to look at, the site will be used a little more. The blog will become a proper blog. The galleries will become larger and more involving. New toys will pop up occasionally.

Basically, it’s now my proper home on the web, rather than a thrown-together shack.

I hope you like it.