A hodgepodge of everything Ken - and I mean everything

Let’s get the obvious question out of the way first.

“You’re a WordPress guy. Why aren’t you doing this on WordPress?”

Fair question. And look - WordPress is absolutely the right tool for a serious, full-featured site. I’d know, I manage 500+ of them for a living. But standing up a WordPress site the right way takes time - theme, plugins, email list, the works. I live in that world every single day, and when I finally had a free hour to start something personal, I wanted to spend it writing, not configuring.

Substack got me from zero to published in about 20 minutes. Hard to argue with that.

Will I eventually get frustrated and rebuild this in WordPress? Maybe. That’s a very on-brand thing for me to do. But for now, this is exactly what I needed to just start.

So what is this place?

Wizard’s Infinite Side Quest is exactly what it sounds like - a running log of every rabbit hole I fall into when I’m not doing the day job. And there are a lot of rabbit holes.

We’re talking:

• Home automation - smart switches, automations that make my family question my sanity, the whole bit

• AI - tools, experiments, workflows, and opinions on where this whole thing is actually going

• Gaming - currently living in ARC Raiders and Fortnite, and I’m seriously considering streaming if I can ever find time to set it up

• WordPress & server nerdery - because even off the clock, I can’t fully escape it (and honestly, I don’t want to)

• The smoker - brisket, pork shoulder, whatever I decide to throw in there on a Saturday morning at 6am like a completely normal person

• ...and whatever else pulls my attention that week

This is not a niche publication. This is aggressively un-niche. If you’re looking for a hyper-focused single-topic newsletter, this is not your spot. But if you like getting a peek into the mind of someone who genuinely can’t stop tinkering with things - welcome home.

Who am I?

I’m Ken - also known as Wizard. That nickname wasn’t self-assigned, for the record. Over the last 30 years, enough people have called me that in enough different contexts that it just kind of... stuck. At some point you stop fighting it and make it your username.

I’m the Chief Technical Officer at AuthorBytes, a web services company focused on authors. I’ve been deep in the WordPress and hosting world for years, I’m obsessed with figuring out how things work, and I’m always building, breaking, or fixing something.

This Substack is my place to share that stuff without it needing to be polished, professional, or perfectly on-brand. It’s just... me.

What to expect

No rigid schedule promises I’ll immediately break. No grand content strategy. Just regular posts when I have something worth sharing - which, given the number of side quests I’m always on, should be pretty often.

If that sounds like your kind of thing, hit subscribe. And if you’ve got questions, ideas, or want to compare notes on any of the above - my inbox is open.

Let’s go.

- Wizard aka Ken