Goings On About Blog

I was one of the folks who left a comment back in 2003. At the time I was 19 and living in Halifax to "seek some independence". I ended up moving back home to Charlottetown about a year later, and have happily lived here since. I'm now 35, have a great career, and volunteer with our fire department. I've been reading your blog for probably 20 years or so, and find the mix of topics you write about to be quite interesting. I've learned a lot about our community through your perspective / words.

I was also one of the 137 who self-identified in 2003. Everything I said then remains accurate: https://ruk.ca/comment/2720#comment-2720

Hi! Not one of those first 137, but I am grateful that you continue to blog! Now I just have to get posting more. ;)

We've been reading and enjoying your perspective for a few years now! Martin enjoys the technology/software posts, and I enjoy the Charlottetown/Culture posts.

Not one of the original commenters, but I have been reading your blog for a long time courtesy of a recommendation from Andrea Ledwell.

I thoroughly enjoy reading your blog and have done so for many years.

I enjoy the variety of topics that you blog about. I've been reading for several years first from Toronto and now from Montreal. I probably ended up here after a segment on Spark or via Dan Misener.

I’m reading! Love your perspectives Peter; keep it going 🙂.

I’m reading! Love your perspectives Peter; keep it going 🙂.

Your blog is my home page,so i read it every time there is something new. I sometimes go back and reread some too.

I have been reading regularly since the days of dial-up. I remember when you did a feature on technology for us when I worked for CBC Charlottetown. Your mix of knowledge and comment on social issues makes the blog a must read.

Regular reader, through RSS (but I also regularly type in r, auto-suggested to ruk.ca in my browser). I wasn't part of your 2003 readership, as we met in 2005 which was partly induced because I was reading Rob Paterson's blog from late 2003, and he had mentioned you to me. Since that first conversation in a Copenhagen hotel lobby, you've been in my feed reader. I appreciate your blog for the mix of things you write here (as described in my posting on your 20 years of blogging: https://www.zylstra.org/blog/2019/06/blogging-a-life/ )

Peter:
I love, love, love your column and look at it everyday.
My wife and I are on the Island in the summer and in Santa Fe, New Mexico now.

I read you every day!

Long time reader here - I love both Archie Fisher and Garnet Rogers together and separately and was privileged to have seen them a long time ago in Lunenburg and I think even PEI when they toured together and recorded "Off the Map" - decidedly in days before GPS, cannot wait to hear the recording you referred to - Thanks Peter for writing an engaging blog

I'm a longtime fan of your blog, especially for the seemingly effortless quality of your writing. Also, I heard Garnet Rogers recently at Harmony House and picked up that same Garnet / Archie Fisher CD and agree -- it's a dandy.

Happy, semi-regular reader over here! I was introduced just earlier this year to your blog by FS Oliver. I also frequently wonder who's looking at my blog or downloading my podcast! I have a couple regulars of both who say so now and again. Otherwise, analytics are a set of lines and numbers that sometimes surprise me, sometimes bum me out, and always hint at a mystery I wish I could uncover. I really enjoy the breadth of topics you post here and relish your writing style, Peter!

Thank you, Peter, for your blog efforts. I can't remember if I was a reader in 2003 but I never miss a post (yet some on programming / coding are read superficially). Your deconstructing and reverse engineering and problem analysis are the best. Keep blogging and I will keep reading.

I was not one of the 137, but I had met you through the Island blogosphere before I left at the end of the summer of 2003. I have kept reading you in all of the years I have been living in Toronto.

Reading regularly Peter from NJ, wishing as always I was back on the Island.....

I stumbled upon your blog two years ago when I was searching for reviews of Danny Gregory's "How to Draw Without Talent" course. Your post about the course convinced me that it was worth buying and I've been reading your blog daily ever since. I enjoy your excellent writing and perspective on the world. As a former computer programmer/analyst (I'm probably dating myself using that term), fountain pen enthusiast, sketcher, quilter, calligrapher, and mother of a son on the autism spectrum, there are so many aspects of your life and the people in it that speak to me. As long as you keep writing I'll keep reading.

Faithful reader. So glad that you take the time to blog (and feel guilty about not doing the same).

Still reading, just a bit lazy when it comes to comment or react in other ways.

CFA to PEI in February, my colleagues at work mentioned your blog as a good local read. Been reading it ever since as my partner and I work on our permaculture hobby farm up in Hope River/Stanley Bridge. Data analysis, social commentary and behavioral change are the icing on the cake here. It's your humour and humanity that keeps me reading.

Another of the original 137 (https://ruk.ca/comment/2724#comment-2724) - love this blog and having a link to the East Coast from here in Ontario.

So much fun to be a part of this fascinating community. I am happy to report that I am still spending the summers at St. Peters Harbour (but unhappy that the beach has been outed by Trip Advisor) and the rest of the year in Burlington, Vermont. And, I am happy that my relationship with this blog has blossomed into a friendship with your whole family, and that we have even spent time off island together. Thanks for bringing us all together, Peter. Cheers!

So, I posted my first comment back in 2005 on one of your posts about Open Bread (MJ on June 27, 2005 - 13:55).
But then with “open source” being discussed along with open bread, I thought that maybe I had mis-interpreted the topic and that it was really an analogy for some new aspect of coding. Being intimidated at the thought and I stayed away until I met you in person many years later and I’ve been a regular reader ever since!

Hi P - I’m still here, at least intermittently, and aspire to keep up. Facebook effectively took me away for awhile, but I decided I couldn’t let it. You know me at least IRL, if not from the Rukapedia

Your blog was one of my first and best resources upon moving to PEI in 2015. Still one of the most informative local sources of information. I love the way you write, and we seem to share similar views on many things.

Still here, my life has much improved since I subscribed to your blog by email!

Long term reader, going back to 2006. I'm an Islander living in Calgary for the past 20 years. I quite enjoy this window into Charlottetown life. I grew up in Cornwall but my childhood library (Confed Centre), my kindergarten (Zion), several of my jobs (Guardian/Evening Patriot) were in your vicinity. My wife and I went on our first date in 1994 which involved a walk through your area. Our sons are the same age and went through many phases together including Minecraft and now starting university. I also enjoy your travel posts. I've followed your lead on some personal tracking software over the years including Exist this year and Librarything. We both enjoy music by Garnet Rogers, Port Cities, Warren Zevon and likely others. Thanks for blogging all these years. When I'm home in the summer/fall (42 days on PEI this year) I feel like I'm stepping into well known territory.

Hey Peter! I didn't appear as a reader until about 2008, I think. But I've been loyal ever since.

I probably started reading in 2008 or so, I had moved here in 2006 from Ontario. After moving back to Ontario and growing the family, we moved back in 2017. We dream of EV's and well insulated houses, so I know we have a few things in common.

I've been aware of your work since Digital Island days in the late 1990s, and have been a regular blog reader since you began it.

You know this already, Peter, but for whomever else is reading this: I have lived in Alberta since age 3, but much of my father's family, and some of my mother's, live on PEI, mostly up west in around Alberton and Tignish.

Peter writes the kind of blog I wish I made time to create myself: a delightful mix of the personal and the practical. I have referenced many times your post on hosting the Elections PEI website on Amazon's infrastructure for $2.44 (a price which has since fallen below $1.06 last I checked a year or two ago), and I regularly send people links to a lot of your open data work.

Here's to many more years of ruk.ca.

Hi Peter,

I'm not sure why I didn't comment about in 2003, but I've also been faithfully reading since dialup internet. Definitely enjoy your posts about all matters PEI, your technology projects, and your honesty and openness about parenting.

Thanks for sharing Peter

I scrolled through the 2003 thread fully convinced that I had commented then about being a longtime and loyal reader of your blog, but alas, I was mistaken, and only commented in my imagination, but am still a longtime and loyal reader and rarely a week goes by that I don't refer to something you have written here. Thank you for your thoughtful insight on so many subjects. I might have to include a end-of-decade best of ruk list on my blog.