dralnah.com!

Welcome to my website!

Who Am I?

Hello! I go by dralnah on the internet; my real name is David. In real life, I'm an engineer in training living in the US working a steady office job. However, in recent years I've gotten the urge to do... a lot of things. I found an urge to make things, to get out and do and learn and experience life. This website is a part of that project for myself! Here, I plan to document plenty of my ventures into different hobbies, thoughts I've had and want to expand upon, and general life goings-on. Here's a few of the things you can expect from me:

  • Photography!
  • Calligraphy!
  • Fountain Pens!
  • Leftist Political Theory!
  • Books!
  • Livestreaming!
  • Video Games!
  • Tabletop RPGs!
  • Hiking!
  • Movies!
  • I do try and delineate all my hobbies, but as usual, things tend to bleed into one another. It's how you become a more well-rounded individual!

    About this Website

    I'll be adding onto this website at my own pace; whenever I have the free time, that is. If you're interested in a specific feature, feel free to ask me about it! The eventual goal is to have a little self-hosted server for myself and a space for a community to talk and thrive in, and discuss what they like outside of the bounds of social media and corporate websites. Here's a small list of the things I have planned to integrate into the site eventually:

  • A live text chat!
  • An email server!
  • A livestreaming setup!
  • A livestream VOD archive!
  • Some other thing I haven't figured out yet!
  • If any of this interests you and you want to stick around, please do! I'd love to get to know you if you want to talk, as well; fill out the form below and I'll contact you when I can!

    Updates

    November 30, 2024

  • Blocking out of CSS styles for home page
  • Added background image
  • Added mobile CSS style; needs tweaking
  • Added Updates section on sidebar - first update!
  • December 1, 2024

  • Changed background image; will probably do so again.
  • Fiddled around more with the CSS
  • Got a responsive (mobile) layout working! I think. Grids are a little confusing still.
  • Changed the updates section to only appear on content for the main page
  • Added planning section
  • February 28, 2025

  • Still planning to come back around to this! Currently at an airport terminal and using a VPN and terminal windows through my new laptop to mess with this since I'm bored and waiting for my plane.
  • April 15, 2025

    I'm still alive, I promise! Just been busy with a lot of other projects, including some other things for the server. I've got a little RSS reader set up now, and I think I know the software I want to use for the photography portion of the website. Ideally I'd probably be using something a bit more complex and competent than directly editing text files in Vim for updating the site though, still need to figure that out.

    For the moment, just going to add this page to remind me that I can still do stuff with this. Maybe in the next few weeks I'll get some more time and energy to finish up this page, at least.

    June 17, 2025

    I'm slowly working on server stuff again! As usual, life has gotten in the way and I have far too many hobbies. However, I've set up a replacement for my old photography site; all photos are free for any type of use (including commercial) under a CC0 license, I don't care what you do with them. I just want to show off things I've done, frankly.

    I've also finally set up a blog portion of the site! In an effort to make it as streamlined as possible (and avoid having to type out more HTML) I'm using Hugo to compile it and then running it on the same NGINX instance as this page! I'll likely start to go on random rants there soon, it's also got its own automatically-updated RSS feed! That way if anybody wants to keep up with my ramblings for some reason they can do so there.

    Aside from that, I'm working on the livestreaming backend; using an app called Mistserver that seems to work very well, but I'm struggling to get it working with my firewall now, unfortunately. Hopefully I'll be able to get it sorted soon. I'd like to set up a little static live page and eventually add a chat like Twitch, and a VOD page. Recently I've gotten into vinyl records and I'd like a place to stream and share those videos of just getting to enjoy those records without worrying too much about copyright strikes.

    Plans

  • Finish up the intro/main page!
  • Iron out the nuances with the CSS
  • Add music to front page!
  • Add fun little doodads to the main page
  • Add email form to front page
  • Make a guestbook!
  • Create a template file for blog posts
  • Make a reference page for blog posts; maybe introduce some scripting to grab all blog posts and line them up here? Or could do everything on the same page. Need to think about it some.
  • Make an index of hobby pages
  • Actually make hobby pages
  • Set up photography page and portfolios; maybe make it a separate subsite? Not sure if I care about that looking more "professional"
  • Maybe a fun page for graphics?
  • Games/widgets page?
  • Maybe some sort of shrine or study page?
  • Page where I just link to other stuff I find cool
  • Link to forum (which I also need to set up and test
  • My Cat

    This is Jameson! He's the cat who likes to hang around this page. Feel free to feed and pet him, keep him happy while I'm out! If you want your own pet, you can get one here!

    Wanna ask a question about the site, about my hobbies, or just talk about your day? Go ahead and send me an email! I'll usually read it within a day or two. Please refrain from giving out any personal information directly through this form, though.

    [FORM WORK IN PROGRESS, SEND MAIL TO:]

    dralnah@protonmail.com