About XFA

Shalom, my brethren. It just so happens that I myself am not Jewish. As way of introduction, my full name is Daniel James Geisz. For many years I was very secretive about my middle name, James, for no other reason than to appear edgy to my extremely non-edgy peers, and I must say I was very successful in this venture. One of my best friends actually thought my middle name was Phillip for an embarrassingly long time. At this point in my journey as a citizen of this planet, I longer have any reservations about sharing my middle name, and because you read this paragraph, you now know it as well. If for some reason you started reading at exactly this sentence, I can fairly confidently say that you have no idea what I’m talking about, and I will gently encourage you to start reading from the beginning like everyone else.

Now then, I will continue my introduction to XFA by providing you, the reader, with three of the least important facts about me, Daniel James Geisz (most people tend to call me Danny):

  1. In my second-grade art class I ate many, many glue sticks. I did this not only because the glue sticks were quite tasty, but more importantly in an attempt to impress Kate and Caitlyn, the two girls who sat across from me at our table.
  2. I am an undergraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley.
  3. At one point I tore my meniscus by jumping off an eight-foot ledge onto a boulder in order convince the universe of my manliness. Looking back, I can tell you the universe doesn’t give half a sycamore leaf about my manliness, and now my knee aches when I go skiing. Lesson learned.

Now then, since I believe I have done a thorough job of introducing myself, I will now do my best to motivate XFA. I just turned 20 years old. It was actually fairly anti-climactic, but because I’m a product of social programming, I now feel much older than I did a month and a half ago. In looking back at the past 20 years, there were of course some highs and some lows. In the past two decades, I’ve run down my fair share of mountains, I’ve learned a sensible amount of math and physics, and I’ve had a truly wonderful family. By many standards, I have had a wonderful life. However, I was also incredibly depressed during my last two years of High School and my first year of college. I have struggled with a crippling lack of self-identity which was, in my humble opinion, largely due to the naïve perception I had of the Christian God for ~15 years.

Yet one of the principal things that I’m annoyed about is the fact that for 20 years, I have had an incredibly difficult time completing various projects. Just to give some quick examples, it took me two years to build a quadcopter, when honestly it should have taken me two weeks. I also spent probably 20 tedious hours soldering around 900 connections to build an LED cube (which, if you haven’t heard of it, is one of the most aesthetically pleasing contraptions man has ever built for less than $50), AND THEN I NEVER ACTUALLY FINISHED THE THRICE-FRACKED THING. I literally just had to wire probably 30 more connections and write (or copy) some code. Annoying stuff, my friend.

I think my fundamental issue is that I’m like a frikin’ puppy dog in the sense that everything around me feels incredibly exciting and interesting and I just want to bark and howl. Perhaps you feel the same way, dear reader. Perhaps you don’t. Perhaps you think I’m a nerd because my two examples of unfinished projects had to do with electrical engineering. You’re entitled to your own misguided opinions, I suppose.

Anyway, I have had quite enough of my disorganized and slothful behaviors. Ya boi is fixed to finally get some stuff done. I have decided to create this blog as a sort of log of my various projects. I hold the conviction that if I carefully log my progress on my different projects and amass a following of even 10 readers, I will be much more motivated to see my projects through to completion. I have actually toyed with the idea of writing a blog for many years (it is probably obvious at this point that I enjoy conveying information in carefully crafted sequences of the written word. If this wasn’t obvious, let me state very clearly: I enjoy conveying information in carefully crafted sequences of the written word), and this gives me a wonderful excuse to finally do so. I also am deeply intrigued by the notion of a YouTube channel, so perhaps that may be in my future.

It just so happens that it is January 1, 2020. I suppose that makes me like all the other boring sheep of this world bleating “new year, new me!” to the wind. Well, whatever. I suppose I’ll throw on my sheepskin if it means I can finally start getting some stuff done.

Now then, I probably ought to give you some idea of what to expect from this blog. I am currently writing this in Microsoft Word, and I do not yet have a blog site. If I were weak-minded codpiece, I would simply use WordPress and get a site up a quickly as possible. In an effort to not be a weak-minded codpiece, I’m going to build my site with Django, Python, Javascript, HTML, and CSS like the heroes of old. I’m also going to carefully log my progress in the form of blog entries, which will be the first entries I publish to my site (after this entry, of course). From my perspective, that seems like a wonderful and appropriate way to christen this blog!

Anyway, I’m about to hit the three-page mark (using Times New Roman, 12 point, double-spaced. I’m not a barbarian), so I best wrap up. If you are reading this final sentence, you have my undying loyalty and you can count on me to follow you into battle against the forces of evil.