Post #1672069

Last night I retired a website near and dear to me. For just shy of 10 years I have been hosting a website I built for my martial arts dojo, free of charge. The dojo is very important to me; martial arts got me through the hardest moments in my life and it would be fair to say it probably saved my life. I was happy to put together a little WordPress site for info and class scheduling. I wrote a small plugin that let the owner define a class schedule and take make-up class appointments through it, which saved some real hassle for student and teacher alike. Earlier this year that dojo closed down. To say that this was emotional for me would be an understatement. Closing down the website makes sense but it also feels like the last vestige of a massively important part of my life is now gone forever. I took my kids to classes with me. I got my friends into the school. I worked hard and made connections and had a community outside of family for maybe the first time in my life at that dojo. Sad day.