Note: this is my original first post from the previous blog, which is why it might seem out of order.

Welcome!

Hey, so what is this?

I used to have a small blog I was maintaining back a few years ago but then I stopped updating it and eventually I might have accidentally emptied out the database at one point and lost the desire to rebuild it. Not to mention, I'm pretty sure I've lost the source code for it not too long afterwards.

What's different?

A bit more on the technical side. I used to be a programmer primarily doing freelance work writing in PHP but those days are long gone now. As time went on, I swapped over to JavaScript sometime around 2018 or early 2019 or so and haven't gone back since.

I was originally planning on creating a new blog platform from scratch, but then I ran into some hurdles parsing my own flavor of Markdown text and ended up choosing the first NodeJS-based blog platform that I thought looked good. Fast-forward a few more days later and now I have a Hexo instance up and running. Thanks to the numerous plugins, extensions and themes available in Hexo, I've settled on the hexo-theme-stun theme with some minor tweaks.

Of course, it doesn't end there. By default it seems like this framework was intended more for local .md file manipulation but with some JS magic, I ended up writing a little script that allows me to edit .md files on the go (with some magic from bulma and EasyMDE).

What's next?

I'm planning on re-writing some previous events to fill up some content on this blog in addition to adding posts whenever I feel like it. Keep an eye out for updates!

About me!

Okay, so who am I? My name is John Paul Aldana, but I often go by JP instead. Of course, I also respond to a bunch of other names as well.

kuruharu

• My in-game name that I have been using since roughly when I started playing Guild Wars 2 (around April of 2013)
• Although I've started with the full name kuruharu, I've shortened it to just kuru as of late.
• Origin story: kuro 黒 is the Japanese kanji for black. haru 春 means spring. What does it mean? Nothing really. It's one of those things where you're stuck behind a character creation screen and every variation of the name you want have been taken unfortunately. Then you start altering the name a bit (i.e. kuro to kuru) and you end up with that. To be perfectly honest it's not a unique name either, but I'm probably going to keep using it for a long while.
• Alternate forms: kururu(e)

Waffles

• Uh. This one is a weird but okay. I'm Filipino and will also respond to the accented version of Wapol. Now where did this come from... I want to say it was closer to elementary school days? I'm at least 40% confident this was a result of an in-game name too but I can't recall exactly.
• Alternate forms: WaffleRain (cause why not)

Leo

• Slightly newer (around Q4 2019/Q1 2020). I don't really listen out for this name but hey, alternate identities are cool right? Let's just say I can thank an intern for this name.

Other lesser known / defunct names

Ganken

• Oh boy, this is like Gaia Online-tier back in like '09.

Project1/iGoBooo

• Used to play Audition online a lot, before it transferred over to Redbana I'd say it was a nice dance/rhythm game but totally not active anymore.

Goldhunter52

• Aww yeah, this name just reeks of Old School Classic Runescape. I think it got hacked at one point.

I'm a full time software engineer born and raised in Chicago. I've been a freelance web developer while in school doing a few odd jobs here and there, and am currently still working front-end. That just means I work with a lot of things that users interact with (like what you can visually see on a browser or graphical user interface). No, this doesn't mean I know why your internet is slow (but it's probably because you just need to restart your computer... but what do I know).

Yes, I do watch anime if it wasn't obvious enough (though admittedly it's been at a decline compared to the high school days). If you're really interested then go visit my MyAnimeList profile and see what bad tastes I have. I also cosplay! I'll be sure to add a post about my two previous cosplays one of these days. Unfortunately due to COVID-19, it's looking pretty uncertain if I'll have a 2020 cosplay but we'll see.

A returning 3d printing enthusiast too. I really got into it around sophomore year in college then it sort of plateaued a bit. Now, I kind of want to go back to it and have backed a Kickstarter for a new printer.

Okay, so that was a lot.

Yeah. I agree.

TL;DR:

• Not my first blog.
• I'm planning on adding content from before retroactively.
• I'm predicting most of the stuff I post here will be rants, food snaps (I bake and cook!), anime and other random shenanigans.

Thanks for reading this and have a good day!