So,the penpals interaction has started with Kevin Quirk, I think I am going to post these in pairs, to make it easier to track. I started things off and Kevins reply is below. I actually already replied to Kevin but have it set to send tomorrow. I'll write the moment I get a reply, so I thought I better put a pause in as not to overload Kev. See here we go.
Happy New Year Kev!
As you know, and I will explain, when we first planned on this I had a different blog under my real name, boy did things change. The thought process started when my daughter told me she didn't feel comfortable with her picture in my social feed, and which I deleted most traces of her that show her face at least. Then I started thinking about my family and all the silly things I post online. Noting really racey, but maybe a tad eccentric, and majorly geeky to be sure. Is that fair, when people they know go snooping around for them and see their father/husband's shenanigans online? I'm not sure, but I rarely do anything professional online. I am a computer hobbiest with an interest in operating systems, privacy, and code. So does having my real name out there matter? So....
I had an older blog lying around at https://parzzix.prose.sh and decided to move there.
So I moved my identity to Parzzix. This is not me being all secret squirrel, not in the least bit. I've used the name Parzzix on and off for some time. I am sure anyone with the slightest OSINT skills could put it together, but it's enough to keep me out of the limelight to say the least. The only account I have under my real name is Facebook (I know!), it is where I can keep track of relatives, old friends, and army buddies.
So that's the gist, feel free to hit me up with any questions you may have, I'm pretty open. As far as other basics, I recently moved to Wisconsin, have 2 girls, 2 boys, 2 dogs, and been happily married for 13 years abouts. I work part time from home so I can manage the kids lives (aka. Mr. Mom), while my much more educated wife is an MD and works at the local hospital.
Now you can feel free to dig deeper. I haven't read your other penpal posts in order to keep it fresh and see where our conversation goes.
Cheers! Tim (Parzzix)
Hey Tim,
Thanks for agreeing to be part of this little experiment - so far I'm really enjoying it; I'm sure that'll continue with this month too!
I totally get your daughter's position. The whole social media thing is something my wife and I have to battle all the time. Our boys are adopted, so it's very important for us to keep them off of anything online, as it could literally mean their personal safety. It is a pain, having to tell the school, Scouts, swimming club, football club etc. not to put any photos of them online, but so far, they have all been great. Whenever a picture is published with them in, their faces are always covered with an emoji or something.
The whole anonymity online thing is something I've tossed around a few times. I use my real name (even though lots of people ask me if "Quirk" really is my surname...it is, unfortunately) but I've considered having an anonymous persona too. I've never done it, as maintaining 2 identities just feels too much like hard work, plus I'm not really sure what value having an anonymous blog/persona would add for me. So I've just stuck with my real name. If I were to start again now though, I don't think I would use my real name. Instead, I'd come up with a fake name and use that, rather than a screen name. Overall, I don't think having your real name out there really matters though.
How do you find Prose? I've looked into it in the past - it's all done via SSH, right? It seems like an interesting concept, but feels too much like a barrier for me. I'm comfortable in SSH, but when writing, I want a box I can type in and click a button to publish. That's what i'm really enjoying about Kirby. There's a CMS I can use (and customise to my liking), but because it's a flat file CMS, I can write content in a text editor if I want as well. It's pretty cool.
No judgement on the Facebook thing here - I killed my Facebook account many years ago, but my wife and I started a new one when we moved down to Wales, just so we could join the village group on there. More to get to know people and have an understanding of what's going on. We literally only use it for that group and the occasional Marketplace thing. None of our personal friends are added on there or anything. For all the privacy and security nonsense that Facebook "offers" it is really great for keeping in touch with people, I'm sad to say. Yeah yeah, we can just phone people, I know...but I'm REALLY bad at that. Plus, I don't have the number of a lot of people from my past. I still don't think I'd go back to using Facebook "properly" though.
How did your move to Wisconsin go? you and the family enjoying it there? I don't know why I think this, but i've always had the impression that you're British. Is that the case? If not, I have no idea where I got that from. 🤷♂️
Are you one of those sadists that enjoys working from home? I do a couple days/week at home, but love being in the office around people. I couldn't work from home full-time; I actually really struggled with that during COVID. Luckily I work for a Bank, so was able to claim it was "critical infrastructure" so could go to the office. After a couple months at home, that's exactly what I did - working from home was affecting me (negatively) in lots of ways.
Ooof this was a long one, so I think I'll leave it there for now. Looking forward to hearing back from you.
Kev
You can find Kev at https://kevquirk.com/