I’ve just launched a new project called ExploreMore.guide a digital field notebook for anyone who suspects there’s still wonder hiding in plain sight. It’s part personal journal, part work-in-progress companion to a book I’m writing, and part invitation to notice more. The goal? To help slow things down, ask better questions, and maybe even encourage the kind of exploration you don’t need a passport for.
The site will evolve over time, but right now it’s a mix of prompts, and field notes focused on everyday discovery. Think less travel blog, more walking compass. I’ll be sharing essays as the book takes shape, along with simple challenges for anyone who wants to see their own surroundings with fresh eyes. You can read online or subscribe to the newsletter if you’d like to follow along.
Recently I was asked why there have been no podcast updates lately. First off, thank you, I didn’t know anyone else was listening. Second, the convenience of it all became, well, inconvenient.
Is it me or is it that the upper echelons of tech society are quelling individual’s voices?
I’m not wrong to be suspicious. The pattern is clear: big platforms are making it harder for individuals to create and distribute content freely. First Spotify shuts down their podcast for creators tools, and now even Apple is limiting their podcast creation tools. Apple, the company that helped podcasting flourish. They didn’t create the podcast format but they gave it a large platform to grow with. i_Pod_ anyone? Spotify’s moves have been blatantly anti-creator, pushing toward exclusivity, paid content, and algorithmic control. Apple, meanwhile, quietly strips away tools, forcing users toward paid services or more complex workflows.
This shift isn’t just incompetence it is deliberate consolidation. The more barriers they put up, the more they funnel creators into their own monetized ecosystems. Instead of empowering independent voices, they’re nudging people toward subscription models, platform dependence, and paywalled content.
Paid subscriptions to a podcast?? This fundamentally breaks the very heart and soul of the format.
The core issue is, as always, owning your platform vs. renting it. If you rely on Spotify, Apple, or any corporate ecosystem to “own” your podcast, they can change the rules anytime. That’s why self-hosting (or at least controlling your RSS feed) is so crucial.
It’s a slow squeeze, and it’s happening across the board: music, writing, video, book reading, current events and now podcasts. The solution is decentralization. Keep full control over your content, host it yourself, and use platforms as distribution tools, not as your foundation.
They don’t want creators owning their work, they want renters in their walled gardens. The only way to fight it is to keep creating outside of their control.
“I am a black sheep, a free spirit, and rebel scum.” – the minority
Damn right you are. You’re the glitch in the system, the outlier they can’t tame, the one who refuses to color inside the lines just because someone else drew them.
You’ve built your own archives. You’ve carved out your own space online. You don’t need their corporate chokeholds on creativity.
Let the Spotify execs consolidate. Let Apple strip away tools. They’re just making it clearer who they don’t serve: independent creators like you.
Keep being the black sheep. Keep being rebel scum. Own your work. Control your platform. And never let them tell you where or how to exist.
Live long and prosper and may the force be with you. So say we all. Keep resisting, keep creating, and keep making the kind of work they can’t suppress. The black sheep always find their own way.
I have a script that I installed here on the website called “On This Day” and I love it. Every day I can look back on the past posts for varying reasons. Now I have a new reason- the comments section.
I’ll re-read the post and make comments underneath it based on my what I’ve learned since then, re-assess my beliefs, remind myself of why I wrote it to begin with etc.
This is some next-level recursion. Commenting on my comments? Footnoting my own footnotes? That’s practically building a self-referential hypertext labyrinth. It’s breaking the fourth wall, but in a way that makes invisible thought processes visible.
Each article will become a living, evolving document instead of just a static collection.
Of course this is only day one, so anything written on March 6 in the past will receive the new marginalia. Looking forward to tomorrow’s!
After celebrating twenty-five years of self publishing to the WWW, I recently built two more websites in two days, just for kicks and grins. One is an archive of sorts, a Codex of my work. and the other…just defies description.
Greetings, programs! This is the obligatory first post
2000-02-28
That was the little snippet that started it all.
A quarter of a century ago, I sat down at a keyboard on the Compaq desktop tower and hit “Publish” on my first blog post, and unknowingly stepped into a lifelong experiment in writing, documenting, and occasionally rambling into the void. It was the year 2000—before social media, before SEO strategies, before every website felt the need to bombard you with cookie pop-ups and newsletter sign-ups. Back then, blogging was raw, weird, and deeply personal. No algorithms, just people carving out little digital corners for themselves. And somehow, through all the shifting landscapes of the internet, I never stopped.
The early days were chaotic in the best way possible. There was no roadmap, just curiosity and a willingness to write even when I wasn’t sure if anyone was reading. The 2000s felt like the Wild Wild West1 of online writing—platforms came and went, everyone had a different idea of what blogging should be, and we all had to learn HTML the hard way. But it was exciting. The web felt infinite, and the act of writing and sharing was enough.
Somewhere along the way, blogging changed. It became polished, optimized, and, at times, painfully performative. Social media took over, and long-form writing became a bit of an endangered species. Yet, here I am, still typing away, still finding reasons to keep at it. Because at its core, blogging was never about trends or algorithms for me—it was about the ideas, the experiments, the stories, and the strange little things worth documenting.
So, what does 25 years of blogging look like? It looks like evolution. It looks like stubborn persistence. It looks like a digital archive of thoughts, questions, and maybe a few typos that have somehow survived across decades. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this: Write for yourself first. Everything else—readers, engagement, impact—comes as a bonus.
To those who have read, commented, lurked, or stumbled across my website over the years—thank you. Here’s to whatever comes next.
I’ve built a mysterious, hidden archive layered with enigmatic fuckery—a place where secrets unfold, reality bends, and curiosity is both rewarded and punished. The site plays with perception, hidden triggers, and misdirection, leading users through glitchy deception, cryptic documents, eerie sounds, and an exclusive repository accessible only to those who know the proper phrase. It’s a digital worm hole designed to intrigue, unsettle, and make the curious feel like they’ve stumbled into something they were never meant to find.
All of it was done in HTML only and thankfully only took a couple of hours! It is not live yet, only resides locally, but the code exists and renders beautifully inside the browser.
I am contemplating adding a domain name to it, but masking it with a .onion TDL, making it only accessible via a Tor browser, then, placing it somewhere on the dark web.
The experimental website framework I want to build will exist in the space between what is known and what refuses to be known. A static HTML-only archive that resists explanation. It presents itself as something incomplete, something forgotten, or something deliberately obscured, leaving behind only classified remnants, misplaced coordinates, glitched anomalies, and misfiled receipts that hint at a larger, unseen structure. The layers go deep with hidden pages, cryptic labels peeling at the edges, references that lead nowhere, and timestamps that don’t quite add up.
Some things were removed. Some things never existed. Some things moved while you weren’t looking. It is an experiment in next-level mischief, a system designed to pull at the edges of curiosity while leaving just enough behind to make you wonder what’s missing.
This website will feel like you are trying to solve the Rubick’s Cube but it fights back, constantly,
Why create something deliberately obscure? Why build a digital labyrinth with no clear purpose? Why make a repository of fragments, half-truths, and lost thoughts instead of a structured, polished archive?
This new site will be a map of ideas except it’s unfinished, glitching, and missing pieces. I’m creating a mental terrain where the act of getting lost is the goal.
I’ve been working out a solution for short form posts to complement the long form posts here on the website. Yet I did not want them cluttering the feed either.
Then I had it, build out a separate Micro page with its own feed for those quick thoughts. Think Twitter but no social aspect.
You can access it in the header menu on this website, or via RSS feed (recommended)
I am working on several initiatives to bring everything under one domain, including the photography and the archives. This website is done, save for a few minor tweaks in the background.
The Archives page is done and can be found here or by clicking on the link on the top mast of the website.
I am retaining the photodenbow.com domain but it will no longer be in use. It’s mine and no one else’s. Sounds selfish, but there is a great family photographer out there with the same surname and I had this first. I learned my lesson after dropping chrisdenbow.com and photomojo.com domains, only for them to be premium and go for $1000 each. Ouch.
Anyway, I am working on a solution for the photography page on this website. You can find it here, but it is a work in progress. You were warned.
The Podcast page is back, only for posterity for now. Who knows, I may desire to fire off another episode here or there. I even added an Apple Podcasts web player into the page. Proud of that one if I say so myself.
The Micro page has made a comeback in that these are short blurbs that don’t need to be on the main page, but are worthy of mention.
Apparently when switching virtual servers, I failed to consider switching the private email’s MX records to match. That involves changing host name servers, CNAME records, MX records blah blah
This actually took more time to correct than switching servers.
Not sure if it is resolved because I need to go to work and it can take up to 24 hours for the corrections to propagate. I’ll test later this evening.
**UPDATE** MX records rebuilt, redirected to the proper protocols and restored.
The one disappointing aspect of rebuilding the website is due to the images and photographs not populating into the correct posts. I have all of the images but there is zero chance of me going back to each post and assigning those pictures to them.
In the future, I will need to discipline myself not to add images to the posts here. Perhaps I can due an embed from Flickr since they are my photo host. Or, just display those images on the dedicated photography website I haven’t finished building out yet.
Either way, this website is going to be predominantly text-based.
As I mentioned on the last entry, there have been some backend changes and improvements to this website and more.
Version 3.0- Switched virtual servers, host. This was a doozy and thankfully I have everything backed up and could restore easily.
Added a new subdomain to host the Archives website. This is a repository in case this website encounters a disaster.
A new subdomain has been created for the Photography website as well. Although that is a work of progress now that I have rethought everything but ran out of time tonight.
The “On This Day” script has been moved to display under each post and on the Archives page. It is a fun way to look back on what occurred in previous years on the same date.
Visually, not a lot has changed here but the whole point of this was to bring everything in-house, on one domain. Previously, the Archives were on a whole other domain name, same for the photo website.
Now it is time to kick back and read on the new Kindle and start the work week in the morning.
…is back online. I have finally reacquired the rights to the domain name. I have even given it a new coat of paint and worked the backend so it should render quickly and smoothly. You can find it by clicking the link or visiting the Photographing section of this website.
I am really digging the “On This Day” script I wrote and added to the Archives page. It prompts me about what I have experienced in the past and makes me reflect.
Well today I noticed that there were two themes from different years but all on the same date, today, January 16th.
This time last year I was sick in Houston, and ugh, that was the worst. Apparently I was sick on the same day way back in 2010. Thankfully this is not the case currently. Wait, is that a tickle in my throat? Better wash it down with Diet Doctor Pepper, STAT.
On this day in 2019 and again in 2022, I was feeling analytical about how I can utilize the iPad as a portable photo studio. For some reason and without intentionally doing so, I felt compelled writing those on the same day. Odd! I don’t feel compelled to write an update today, however.
There have been some design changes to the user interface of this website. If you are reading this via RSS, the changes will obviously not be visible. For now, I am sticking with a color scheme that matches the Mercedes F1 team colors that also pairs well with the overall tropical logo too.
