Since my last post here, a lot has happened. The long and short of it is that I am looking for fresh blood. 

If you're young with a passion for design, a flair for writing, a need for technology and an interest in advertising and branding, you need to get in touch with me.

I'll leave it up to you to figure out how to get in touch with. Think of it as a test :)

There's a lot to be said for fresh starts.

In 2008 I quit journalism. At the time I didn't really know what I would do next. What I knew for a fact, was that I needed to do something that would let me live life on my own terms. It also meant clearing out a lot of the accumulated baggage of nearly nine years spent working in mainstream media.

I ended up doing the exact opposite to start with.

I blogged about the media, and what I thought was wrong with it.

I posted links to interesting bits of news, and tracked the rise in traffic ... in fact, I would wake up in the morning and check the stats to see how the site had done while I was sleeping.

Perhaps, I am unique in finding a sense of validation in the number of people who visit my site to read an extract from Wired, before heading over to Wired to read the rest of the article ...

By the end of 2008, I knew what I wanted to do: it was time to return to my roots. I loved coding as a kid. As I grew older, the love didn't dim, but the sort of work I saw around me left me disillusioned. And then there was the dot-com bubble burst which led me to journalism in the first place.

But now, things were very different. I was older, perhaps even wiser, and certainly more experienced in understanding business and work. My time in journalism had included reporting, production and helping set up a news channel. I had the good fortune of being given responsibility and opportunity. I'd like to believe I made the most of it.

In January 2009 I started to code again, and the nature of my blog started to change. It obviously became more technical, but I still persisted with the old habit of linking to good technology articles and then watching traffic. It was like a bad habit that refused to go away.

As I learnt more, and my code became more robust (perhaps even sophisticated) ... I realised I was changing as a person. I was becoming more focussed than I had been before, and I was finding validation in the work I did. It didn't matter if a lot of people saw my code ... I derived pleasure from knowing I had done a good job.

So, I deleted my blog -- which was quickly becoming, the last remaining link to the past.

My friends remain the same. After all, they weren't friends because we worked together ... :)

So, now, I'm left with a domain and the need to write. This is no longer going to be a blog, but a chronicle of what I want to share with the rest of the world. And yes, it is going to be technical at times, and I still might write about the media. But I'm not checking the stats any longer.

See you around

This has to be the simplest CMS in the world. It does everything I want it to ... and it looks good :)

Basically, I've used Codeigniter to build me this CMS in around 8 hours over 5 days. My plan is simple, keep the backend simple, and use a lot of jQuery goodness in the front-end.

Over the next few days, I plan to add to the site slowly. And I promise to talk about why I killed my old blog.

In case you're interested in seeing what the code for this CMS looks like, head over to the github repo for Chronicle.