Historically, I’ve maintained my personal websites about as well as I’ve kept my new year’s resolutions ¹. An initial burst of energy and excitement, followed by a gradual slowing down until I forget about it. The reasons are many, but it’s usually a combination of family and work commitments taking over, along with a dash of poor prioritization.

I’ve been online for 25+ years now, and I’ve had everything from a Geocities page (oh how I WISH there was a copy of it somewhere, but it’s long lost to time…) to various attempts at a “blog” with Blogger, WordPress, Gatsby, and many more.

Nothing has ever really stuck.

And look, I know things evolve over time. But I haven’t even kept a site alive long enough for that to happen!

A team of creators

In June of 2025, my employer Buffer launched an internal initiative called “Team of Creators” to help support and encourage the team in better understanding our customers by becoming creators ourselves. This wasn’t just a nice-to-have or if-you-can-find-the-time type of thing. It was a full-on expectation for every member of the team.

A bit daunting, perhaps. But I knew it was the perfect opportunity for me to try again.

What took you so long?

You might note that June 2025 was over 6 months ago, and that’s true. So what took me so long?

Well, procrastination certainly plays a small role here, but I should point out that I’m just wrapping up four beautiful months of paternity leave. We had our fourth child in September.

I had a few starts on this blog (and other ideas) in the months leading up to my leave, but nothing fully materialized. And frankly, most of my spare time was dedicated to taking care of my very pregnant wife, or getting the home ready for child #4.

I have no regrets. But now that I’m back, I’m ready.

Here we go

I love beginnings — the start of a new day, week, or even year. The same thing goes for the beginning of a new project. I’ve heard my friends at Buffer refer to this as being a “jar opener.” Some people are jar openers, and others are jar closers. (Which one are you?)

I don’t want to make this a bigger deal than it needs to be, but I am excited to try something new here. I’m excited to see what this becomes.

Eventually consistent

I’ve chosen to name this site something other than my own name or nickname². The name “eventually consistent” is both a geeky reference to distributed databases³, and more importantly, it embodies my goals for… well, everything.

I don’t need to be consistent, complete, or perfect right now – just eventually. And even that is TBD. ;)

Thanks for reading.

Footnotes

1. That is to say, not well. ↩

2. I always go by hamstu when a username can be chosen, it’s an amalgamation of ‘hamish’ + ‘stuart’, my first and middle names. ↩

3. Learn more about that on the Wikipedia page for “Eventual consistency” ↩