Journal
April 13, 2026
A 'Key' update
I visited family over the Easter holiday in Miami. While I spend a lot of time there as a kid whenever I would see my grandmother, we really didn't explore that much of South Florida in general, so me and my brother decided to take a little day trip out to the Keys.
We saw all of the major spots like the Hemingway Home, Bahia Honda, and even the famous bouy that marks the southern most point on the Continental United States, and you can see it all--
Right here on my new dedicated DaibouKevin X/Twitter account!
I know it was mostly meant for when I travel to Japan and everything but really, with all the places I've been going I think it makes sense to use it as a ground to cover all my adventures without making extensive blog posts. At least when I'm NOT in Japan.
For the record that's also what I'll be using to chronicle the upcoming September/October trip to so keep an eye out for that!
--Kevin
March 28, 2026
The Third Adventure
Springtime is finally rearing it's beautiful face (despite the occassional chilly breeze) and the cherry blossoms in the front yard have fully bloomed in all their pink, pretty glory. It was at this time two years ago that I took my very first trip to Japan and those homegrown sakura were something of a signal I think. That is also when I kicked off DaiBouKevin, a blog dedicated to my journey and chronicling almost every day of my two week trip. I continued it last year as well, leaving at the same time going to some new places, although I kinda sorta stopped in the middle of the trip for a few reasons:
One, pure exhaustion. I never really took a day where I just relaxed and winged it like I did in Nara so my steps were all over the place and my feet were killing me even after enjoying some nice long soaks in the hotel onsens and every day I would come just not feeling like making an entry, and even if I did it would be cumbersome to work with because--
Two, I had set up that site as a free WordPress blog so there were only so many photos I could post in it's entierty which made me have to scramble for a few alternatives in trying to find places to host my images. I had an alternate Twitter account for that sort of thing but hotlinking those pictures proved to be more cumbersome than helpful.
That was before I formally (re)lauched this personal site of mine, ergo now with all my future travel adventures, I can keep them nice and documented here withouth having to worry about similar limitations and I've got much, MUCH more freedom in how I present my entries. Which brings me to the next reveal since were on the topic...
I will officially be making my third trip to Japan come late September! That is to say DaiBouKevin will pick up again this fall!
I've already got the hard part out of the way, which was acutally plunkering down for the flight. Stay tuned for more details to come!
--Kevin
March 7, 2026
Crusing Flavor Town
You may have noticed at the footer of the site are a few radio buttons with the labels of what looks like ice cream flavors. Well that's actually a reference to the game Earthbound on the Super Nintendo, and if you haven't heard of Earthbound then all you need to know is that it's a beloved RPG that is the inspiration for many-a other indie RPGs and fans will never not talk about how it's the greatest video game ever made.
I can't say that as a game have the same affection for it that I do with a lot of other titles from that era, chalk it up to me only playing it after it's heyday when it got re-released onto other Nintendo online services or whatever but that's beside the point.
What IS inspiring though, and something I've clearly taken from the game is it's UI particularly the window colors that one can select when starting up a new game.
After selecting some basic choices about text speed and sound mode, you get the option of five different "flavors" that change the window borders to different colors and I thought that was such a cool feature that I wanted to recreate it for this website.
By clicking any of those options below, you can change the theme of this site on the fly and all the choices will carry over between the pages as you navigate--which was probably the biggest pain in the ass to get that working as it should (never mind that as of this writing I STILL need to set it up properly on mobile). But it was all worth it just to add some more interactivity to this place and have the door open to thinking of even more wacky flavors beyond the six provided.
I'm almost inspired to make some candy now.
--Kevin
February 22, 2026
Getting Started
Greetings everyone!
It's been a long time coming and a long time planning but I am happy to finally (re)launch my personal website "kevin-markey.com" otherwise known as "Doing Kevin Things."
In an age of an increasingly homogenized Internet, I feel like there's been a lack of the slap-dash, almost wild west like creativity that defined the early experiences of silly sites online all in favor of algorithims and engagement clicks. I don't like it, I don't like it at all. Which is why I created this site. This place is essentially a portfolio and an outlet where I just put out fun things to share without any need to worry about getting those sought after internet doots that drive your Instagrams and Twitters, Facebooks and TikToks.
It's a personal space that I'm willing to share on my own terms. If you want the full scoop then check out my About page for more information.
Either way, I'm glad to be out there and I'm extra glad you visited. Enjoy your time here!
--Kevin