Doug Bolden's wyrmis.com

The site that once was and still (somewhat) is.

Note that new Dickens of a Blog updates will happen on https://dickens.wyrmis.com. See the Identification Box, below, for other current projects.

What the Heck Happened to Doug?!

Up through 2016, this blog had multiple updates a week. In the summer of 2016, due to reasons, this blog suddenly went to zero updates. This had two side effects: a) the people who were finding my blog suddenly saw a stop of updates around the time a lot of the then recent updates had been a bit fraught and b) a few details that were best kind of temporary ended up getting enshrined into the front page for months and then years.

What were the reasons? That's a bit complicated but it comes down primarily to three:

• The first and real-est one was the blog was in need of a major rewrite to its back-end to better support HTTPS and mobile data. Because this blog was largely hand-coded, this meant I had a very daunting task. I worked out a variety of solutions and had the start of a new entire blog back-end but it would have required absolute months of repair work or starting over and I was not in a space to accomplish this. There were hundreds of pages built up already: some important and good and some less important and/or in need of deep repair.
• I was partially not in a space to accomplish this because of the variety of deeply poor personal decisions that had been going down that summer. I got through periods where I do not feel like sharing a lot of things and after a while that period had gone on so long that
• Several very positive life changes were occuring that were hard to encapsulate, somewhat entangled with the above, and a stopping spot to sit down and go "HEY EVERYONE!" never occurred.

Just to catch everyone up, here are some of the various changes that have occurred:

Current through 2025-10-02

Towards the end of Summer 2016, Kaz and I realized they were pregnant.

March 2017, our daughter—Barbara Philosophia Bolden—was born.

May 2017, unfortunately, Kaz's mom died relatively young due to an unexpected complication related to an illness.

Over the next couple of years, Kaz began their transition and became a lot more statisfied in their gender identity.

2017 - 2020, overall work satisfaction and hobbies were good and fulfilling. New gaming. New photography. Poetry took one hell of a nose-dive but overall life quality was good.

2020, COVID-19 occurred.

Summer 2020, Cinderella, our cat of 17-years, grew sick and died. Even without COVID it likely would have been soon but COVID made it harder to get her the care she needed but she lived relatively comfortable her last few months.

Later in 2020, my mom died not due to COVID but because of some health issues 100% exacerbated due to COVID.

Somewhere in here, we adopted two new male kittens. Both tuxedos: Marshal and Chase. The names come from Paw Patrol. I wanted to call them Machen and Blackwood but my daughter overrode me at the time.

2021-2022, we transitioned to more active lifestyles after COVID: getting out more, trying to work back in some more travel.

May 2022, while hiking near Chattanooga, TN, I fell and slammed my leg into some fairly hard stone and ruptured my tendon, destroyed my knee, tore muscles, etc. It took a decent amount of surgery, months of bed-rest, and a lot of physical therapy to get me back to walking again. I still walk through the use of two walking sticks and will never really be able to move unassisted to a degree.

2022, Kaz's dad died due to cancer and complications and the aftermath was pretty rough dealing with finances and such.

Early 2023, a third cat — this one orange — essentially adopted me. Due to the sounds he made while eating, we named him Turkey.

March 2023, Kaz and I, after 20 years of living in an apartment, finally bought a house and spent the first couple of months learning fun things like "Renovated houses sometimes flood due to unforeseen plumbing issues". We have spent the past year and half getting a lot better at being home owners.

At the start of 2024, I stopped smoking for the most part. I still smoke a pipe once a...week, month...not frequently. Smoke something like a pack of cigarettes a month. It is nice. Now I just need to work on losing weight. I gained quite a bit while more deeply disabled but it is hard to lose a lot of weight when I still have strong limits on how far I can move and how fast.

Mid 2024, I had been solo roleplaying for a bit and finally decided to make a blog for it (which is now: The Doug Alone). That blog not only got me even more into solo roleplay and back into creative expression, it is basically what got me back into sharing stuff online and blogging after a eight-year absence.

Mid 2024 through Early 2025, though I had been winding down for years, I finally started removing myself from most social media. Now only a few fragments remain and those are likely limited in their lifespan.

May to July 2025, we have moved to Belgium (near Brussels) for work and just general life reasons. It is not yet expected to be a permanent change. It has been an interesting challenge. But it is nice.

September & October 2025, the time finally felt right to start waking back up my online presence. Spent some time getting my domains shifted together under one roof, getting online hosting set-up better, and rebuilding the "Three Headed Serpent" as explained, above.