Personal Archives - Rhys Wynne

Forty-Two

Today I turn forty-two.

I remarked on my fortieth birthday that I’m in a good position and that generally doesn’t make a good blog post. I find myself in a similar positionthis year. So forgive me if I approach it with trepidation as within a few months of my fortieth I lost 3 big clients and got diagnosed with high blood pressure that sent me into a bit of a depression for a little while.

But yes, things are….good? Things are good. The AI Aslopolypse has largely missed me, and by January I think I managed to recover the majority of the revenue lost with those 3 clients. Personal wise things are great – Fern has moved back to the UK so I see her loads more, and I’m finding myself and my life busy. I’ve been lucky, and I want it to continue.

Anyway, one negative is that I feel like I’ve put on a bit of weight since last year. Diet hasn’t been quite tuned in. I’ve reintroduced booze into my life, but after my first hangover I’m back off it. I did also take myself out of therapy as well. So lots of personal changes under the hood.

I’ve done a fair bit of travelling in my 42nd year. I’ve gone to Bucharest (three times), Krakow, Paris, Lisbon, Seefeld and Warsaw. All of those have been with Fern for various trips. The notable UK places have been to have been Scotland (I have fallen in love with the highlands and I’m going again this year), Bristol (where I ticked off one of my 50 before I’m 50), London (a fair few times), Gloucestershire and Blackpool (for Play Expo). I’ve also been to two weddings, one of which was my brother’s. I was best man, and it was nice to see my extended family again. Another highlight has been meeting the community of the Retro Asylum, both last weekend at Arcade Club, and last year where I ticked off another 50 before I’m 50 – go to the Cave.

Speaking of the 50 before I’m 50, I’ve ticked off two off my list this year. Obviously that means I’ll end with 40 things not done, if I continue at the same rate, so I need to pick up the pace a bit.

Work

Work wise I’ve been consistent. Although those 3 big clients went I’ve been able to replace them with more clients, which means I’m currently in my “hectic” stage of the freelancer work cycle – so much that I have a pang of guilt taking a day off – but I’ve been able to be consistent on both the blog and my WordPress newsletter. I’m taking on work from April. Please get in touch.

Side projects has been tough as this has been one place that has taken a hit. Revenue has been hit on both All Rumble Stats and Drive in Cinemas. It’s down to traffic mainly. For example, this was Drive in Cinemas search engine traffic over the last year. The orange line is the rankings, and the blue/purple line is the impressions and traffic from search engine.

As you can see, that whilst there has been a smaller drop in rankings, traffic has completely cratered. My thinking it’s those bastard AI Overviews meaning clickthroughs don’t happen. Sigh.

Nevertheless, it’s not all bad news, there’s still a few people who visit All Rumble Stats on the regular (usually to argue about Liv Morgan’s height, Liv Morgan has some passionate fans), and they are easy to maintain, so I’m happy to keep them running for now.

My goal I think for side projects is to build projects that don’t rely on one source of traffic, which is why I’ve been pushing my WordPress Newsletter a bit more. Another side project has been building Revive to Sky. Which is going well.

I have enjoyed blogging more here. I was inspired by a talk at Loopconf and taken a more “publish and be damned” approach to this site, so a few more shorter posts, a more handmade design. I dunno, with the rise of AI a bit more homely designs and looks I feel will be popular in the next year or two. I’ve also been able to write posts quickly. Posts that just focus on one point – a link or a short point – more often. It has given me joy and allowed me to connect with folks again. Start up your blogs again folks!

Hobbies

Other things that have bring me joy have been making more video games. I’ve released two more: Gone Fission! and Mari Lwyd’s Pantri Panic! as part of the Pico 8 Advent calendar. Although they take a lot of effort, it’s really nice to see how folks react to the game. I’ve had a few lets plays and when random threads get put on on subreddits it makes me smile. Do more! Tell people about the art you love! I’ve currently got 3 more games on the go, at various stages of completion. I’ve a deadline for one, but the hope is to get all 3 done before halfway through the year, and focus on the second half of the year with a non Pico 8 game and an advent calendar game I’ve been knocking around my head. It doesn’t involve Mari Lwyd!

I had a decent cricket season. It was my best ever – scoring over 100 runs, hitting my high score of 31 not out (retired), and even picking up a couple of wickets. I also managed to be the substitute for the Hampson Cup triumph for our team this year, which was extra nice as I had my dad with me. However, I felt I could have done better: I did fall away mid season, but I am happy with my progress.

I’m still enjoying my running. I’ve taken about 2 and a half minutes off my 5k time, and I’ve done a fair few parkruns. They’re little moments of a joyful community and set me right up for a guilt free weekend. I think my highlight was my PB at Heaton Park parkrun (with it’s Angina Hill), running the first ever Y Promenad Parkrun, ticking off “Z” in the alphabeteer parkrun challenge¹ in Poland. I Even managed to enjoy the Clarence parkrun, which I was caked in mud by the end.

So, overall, I’m very content and happy at the moment. Things aren’t perfect (looking at you, the entire wider world), but other than the sense of dread that exists with the state of the world and the general anxiety of things going wrong, things are doing well.

And – I think – that’s all we can hope for.

And now the yearly comparison!

As you all love it so much. Here’s my updated comparison with you know who.

Previous Versions: 30, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41

This is where you run a parkrun who’s name beings with A-Z, minus X. I’m currently on 15 letters. ↩︎
I’ve started putting client plugins under my name, so that explains the rise! ↩︎

That “Me in 2016” Social Media Trend

If you’ve been on Instagram recently¹ (probably the only major social media platform I tolerate), you’d have seen the “Me in 2016” trend doing the rounds. Though trying to find a page somewhat relevant to link to is tough mind (there was a “Me at the start of 2016 vs me at the end of 2016” meme trend from 10 years ago that was popular after the world went to shit), but if you’re not aware, people are sharing photos of themselves from 10 years ago. Yes. Ten. No I can’t believe it either.

Wanting to jump a bit on the bandwagon, and based on a comment I replied to on the Under Consoletation Podcast Discord group, I thought I’d turn it into a blog post, as rather surprisingly to me I was pretty active blogging here. Granted, a lot of it is cringey unboxing videos as I think I was trying to start a YouTube channel for reasons only known to myself, but I thought I’d share some highlights.

Brexit and Trump aside², 2016 was a good year. I did a fair bit of travelling and actually was settled with everything before the world went to shit. I wasn’t sure if I was going to go freelance (that was a couple of years later), but instead I was focusing on actually enjoying myself, and enjoy myself I did. My highlights were:-

Euro 2016

Euro 2016 was the first time I saw Wales (now with 2 Euros, a women’s Euros and World Cup under their belt) qualify for a major tournament. I cannot begin to talk about how much that tournament meant to me: I’ve 5 photos of Hal Robson Kanu’s goal against Belgium in my house. For context, I’ve 4 of my family.

But mainly, whilst the UK was going to shit with the run up to the Brexit referendum, in France, the Welsh were having a great time. So many fond memories of the 2 weeks I spent in France, the nights in Bordeaux with about 3 groups of friends from high school, university and Wales away, the bar in a spa hotel in Kortrijk, Belgium I was staying at and the memories that included (which was largely me, a German couple and a Spanish barman talking about life. But there was a funny moment where a Welsh couple stayed a night and didn’t realise that Wales were in the Euros, they had driven to buy a caravan). Exploring Toulouse, drinking in the main square, and seeing friends from all walks of life. Just an incredible two weeks for me.

Honestly, I’d wager that it (along with the Euros in Germany a couple of years back) were the last great international footballing tournaments, and even now the World Cup doesn’t interest me, even if we qualify, given the state of the world.

I wrote about it a couple of times on the blog 10 years ago, “We’ll Always Have Bordeaux” and “Je ne veau pas aller travailler“. The first was written after I came home, the latter was after we were eliminated.

Wrestlemania 32

The other highlight of 2016 for me was probably the worst Wrestlemania in years, certainly the worst between 30 and 40. Whilst the actual event was terrible, the memories from the trip to Dallas and New Orleans will stay forever. This is arguably a more impactful trip for me, as I’ve got a couple of really good friends from it that I still speak to most days – one of which has moved to London. So, whilst Wrestlemania was bad, the trip? Life changing. I remember the food, the golf day, the day after Wrestlemania which involved a lot of drinks in the sun (made the flight home terrible) and some other stories I only feel comfortable sharing in person. Just a fantastic time really. Hopefully America sorts itself out so I can visit again.

I wrote about it with “That Shit Cray(fish)” and “Dallas Flyers Club“.

Polish Family

Finally, the third biggest impact (and another happy memory)³ was the wedding of my brother to my sister-in-law. It was my first visit to Krakow, and the wedding was excellent. I also got to meet my sister-in-law’s family for the first time, who are wonderful people. Plus I fell in love with the city of Krakow as well. I’m probably going there twice this year – once for WordCamp Europe, once as there’s been talk of a 10 year celebration.

I talked about the travelling bit of Krakow on a blog post here “Only here for the Krakow“.

The rest of the blogs were seemingly dedicated to a Dryathlon I did in 2016 – which is funny reading considering how much I hated non alcoholic beers back then. They’re pretty much my go to now. Funny.

Anyway, how was your 2016?

I said “recently” when I mean “since the start of the year”. This post has been sat in drafts for a while needing images. Soz. ↩︎
Which is like Mrs Lincoln saying “That aside, I really enjoyed the play”. ↩︎
I jokingly put it third. It’s the biggest. ↩︎

On the “This Week in WordPress” (Episode 365)

This week I was on the WP Builds “This Week in WordPress” podcast episode 365. The main focus on my discussion was this blog post by Elliot Richmond which I love about where he publishes his content. It’s something I’ve been thinking a lot of, on where I publish my work.

Also, through it I discovered the Internet Archive Wayback Machine Link Fixer plugin, which pushes your blog posts to the Internet Archive (something I’ve installed on the site now – so it’d be interesting to see how it works). Very cool. And there’s probably dead links all over this blog. Will report back.

As always, it was good to speak with Nathan and Michelle, and good to meet Marc Benzakein too!

Listen to the Episode

Watch the Episode

Dealgorithmed

I was in the third edition of the Dealgorithmed email, an email dedicated to the fun side of the web.

It’s not available online, so in my interview I shared a website I love (Cloudhiker), content I’m loving at the moment (Evercade) and waxed lyrical about some of the early Jackbox games from the early 00’s I wish came back – Acrophobia (which was a backronym generator for multiplayers) and Cosmic Consensus which only exists in this screenshot…

…but it was excellent. Imagine a Family Fortune style board game, where you could advance one, two or three squares depending if you picked the most/second/third most popular answer.

Anyway, hello if you came from that newsletter! I hope you enjoy your stay here, sign the Guestbook. 🙂

New Year, New Goals (2026 Edition)

Ah yes, my regularly yearly goals post.

So last year I made a bunch of goals for 2025 – things I wanted to do in the year to try and grow me, my business and my health. I also introduced the bingo card feature, where I’d chalk of lines, corners or a full house should I achieve them.

That really helped as I achieved quite a lot in 2025. Here’s where I am:-

Get back into public speaking – Success 🎉: I spoke twice in 2025 – once as WPLDN, once at an evening MWUG meetup. It was good to finally get out there and share my knowledge on running a business, and I really enjoyed it.

The talk I gave was a realisation after Loopconf where I shared breakfast with a few folks, and I talked somebody’s ear off on how I run a business. I’m pretty much an open book (even talking about money, folks – you should talk about money¹), and this was my talk.

Overall, it was pretty well received. I really enjoyed it and it was good to get good insights from folks on how they run their businesses. I’ve taken at least one point on board for my business.

Speaking at WordPress LDN (photo credit Nathan Wrigley)

Finally rebuild Winwar Media to my liking – Success 🎉: The bingo card helped here as I was pushed to achieve this towards the end of 2025. In the end, the new site went live on 29th December 2025. Is it finished? No. Is it better than it was? Yes. Can I build and iterate things on top of it? Indeed I can.

Similarly, I did the same with this here site, being inspired by Loopconf to start blogging again. Now I can work on things and have a clear roadmap for this site, using a a Trello board to map things out, add features and making the site a bit of joy to navigate. That’s the hope, anyway.

Sing about my Work More – Success 🎉: Yes! I now think I can tick this off as a success as I’ve built up a case studies section on Dwi’n Rhys. I also turn the testimonials into Instagram content, which helps engagement and churning out social posts. Yay! Not quite AI slop!

Run a sub 30 minute 5k – Failure: I didn’t achieve this. I’m about 2 and a half minutes off this at the moment. I’ve had a couple of 1km’s under the 6 minute mark. I’m not going to focus on times, though, instead focusing on quantity this year (more in the personal goals for 2026).

It’s odd, I think my mind gets bored with some runs, and ones I can focus on, which are a bit hilly for example, I do better than ones that are quite boring. I thought I’d get a few fast times over the Christmas break, but turns out straight in and out runs are harder than more undulating park runs. As a beach child, I hate to say it but the sea gets boring.

Hit a weight loss goal – Failure: I haven’t weighed myself for an age, but I know I’m off this. A lot of bad habits have creeped back, as although I feel healthier than this time last year, I am still a little heavier than I like. I’ll look to improve this this year.

Update: I weighed myself this morning, and it confirmed my suspicion. I put on a bit of weight! I’m still way down, but yeah, up a bit.

Attend a Game Dev Meetup – Success 🎉: This was an achievement as I attended the Manchester Indie Game Dev Meetup in July. I’ve since not been back (not that there is anything wrong! Just the dates haven’t aligned). I look forward to attending next year.

Oddly, I also achieved a goal from 2024 – with me scoring 23 in a game of cricket. Funnily enough it was the first game in 2025 I achieved this, with a score of 24. My highest is now 31 (retired).

After talking about the bingo card last year, I’ve filled it in and with additional of two of my 50 before I’m 50 list (I ate in a Michelin Starred Restaurant and I went to The Cave), this was the state of play.

I hit two lines! As such, I treated myself to two of my “line” prizes, which was a pair of brand new pair of cricket trainers and a Strava subscription.

Onto this year, here are my goals for 2026.

Professional Goals

Weirdly, my goals for 2026, I struggled with thinking of professional goals for me this year. I even turned to everybody’s favourite ocean burning hallucinogenic tool – ChatGPT – to try and come up with ideas and it came up a bit short. Nevertheless, here’s what I’ve settled on.

Release another Paid Plugin or SAAS

It’s been a fair few years since I’ve released a paid WordPress plugin or SAAS, and now that I write this with a relatively long term runway, I can maybe focus on some more non web development projects. I was fortunate enough late last year to work on a paid plugin which gave me great insight into how I can build and market one.

So the hope is for 2026 I’ll release a paid plugin or a SAAS. I’ve got two ideas I can maybe look to explore, one paid plugin is pretty much half way there for a first draft, so I can’t imagine it being too much work to push it out. I’ve got a cheeky idea for a blog post to prepare for it, too.

Grow my WordPress newsletter to 50 subscribers

I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to do this, but one thing I’ve seen on a number of my sites has been traffic has dropped from search engines over all my sites. I’m not seeing a drop in rankings, so I suspect it’s due to AI. Joy.

Nevertheless, I’m looking to grow communities around my sites. One such thing is my monthly WordPress newsletter. It gets a decent number of subscribers and open rates, but it is still stubbornly quite small, with only ~~22 (at the time of writing)~~ I pushed it out a little bit and I’m now up to 28.

I will say, the quality of subscribers is quite something. Names I trust and enjoy listening to in the WordPress space. I must be doing something right. It’d be good to get it up to 50 subscribers by the end of the year. I’m not entirely sure how, so if you want a monthly dose of WordPress, the web and some other fun things, please, do subscribe. Thanks!

Finally get WP Email Capture updated to my liking

I’m fucking sick of Peadig and it breaking, so now that Winwar Media’s site is done, I want to get WP Email Capture off Peadig and onto my standard Kadence setup. I’m imaging as I don’t particularly want to change the design too much or it’s functionality it’ll be a lot quicker. We will see.

Be weird to actually thinking of three different professional tasks to do for the first time!

Personal Goals

First off, I want to go ahead and do something I swore this time last year I’d never do, and run a 10k. I ran a couple of properly timed 5k runs with medals and stuff, and I think most runners are secretly magpies and like collecting shiny things. I’ve ran a 7k once (around the lake near where my partner lived in Romania), so I’d be keen to try and get to double figures.

Similarly for double figures, I’d be keen to get to 50 parkruns this year. I’m currently on 28². I’m 50/50 on whether I achieve this, but it’s one parkrun every 2 weeks. As long as I maintain that, I think I’ll achieve it.

Finally I really want to release a video game on non-Pico 8 hardware. What that will be I’m not sure, but I really want to either focus on retro technology, or something like Godot for maybe pushing onto Steam? We’ll see. I have looked at potentially game jams like DOSEmber as there are DOS based languages on Lua. I have one game on the go that could tick this off, but it may be technically cheating myself. But it’ll tick off the square.

So, on to this year, here’s my bingo card for this year, adding on 3 potential “50 before I’m 50” items.

Overall, I’ve gotten very lucky. The middle square is quite a nice one as I’ve already got a 50 before I’m 50 booked in, and a second one I’m relatively sure of hitting, however I hope that doesn’t make me lazy, especially as two of them require me to be fit.

Nevertheless, those are my goals for 2026. What about yours? Leave them in the comments, and are you doing a bingo card this year? Let me know if so!

My rationale to this is that it’s like politics – the people who shut down talk about it have the most to lose. By being an open book I feel I can help people grow, but that’s by the by… ↩︎
It’s kind of funny that both the amount of subscribers and parkruns are both on 28 ↩︎

	Rhys (With a Spoon)	Reese Witherspoon
Age	Nearly 42 (Up 1)	Nearly 50 (Up 1)
Oscars (Nominated)	0 – No Change (0 – No Change)	1 – No Change (2 – No Change)
Books Written	1 (No Change)	5 (Up 1)
Marriages	0 (No Change)	2 (No Change)
Children	0 (No Change)	3 (No Change)
WordPress Plugins Written & On the WordPress Repository	14 (Up 3)²	0