And so another phase in the experiment begins...

Several of my (offline) friends are into blogging and so, to have another chance to shoot my mouth off (pun intended) i got into this blogger deal. One friend in particular (and you know who you are ;-) has asked me (um, at least three times) where my blog is, so here goes. First a little of why it has taken me so long to get here.

my "blog" chronology so far -

some afternoon of Fall 1999: while in the library of a local Technical College (lovingly referred to as "Taco Tech" by some), i overheard two students talking about reading a "BLOG". i promptly wasted the afternoon surfing the net to find out what the heck a "BLOG" was. i drove home later that afternoon proud of myself for having discovered that "BLOG" is short for "web log". (yes, i am a useless information geek and it doesn't take much to make me happy)

Fall 1999-Spring 2001: i occasionally wasted an afternoon in the library surfing the net and reading "blogs" of various types - political, personal, spiritual, philosophical. Again and again it struck me - "How can these people put all this stuff (what they're thinking, feeling, going through, etc.) out on the net where anybody can read it?!" By the time i finished my stint at the Technical College, i had convinced myself that blogs were written by people that (for whatever reason) craved attention.

Summer 2001-June 2003: armed with my degree from the Technical College, i now had to get a "real job" and provide for my family. Not much time or opportunity for reading blogs during this time but, once in a while, an email with a link to one of several political blogs would find its way to me and i'd waste a few minutes reading and maybe even post a comment. ("I'm mad too, Eddie, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!!" - and if you get that joke i bet you're even older than i am :-)

June 2003: My best friend in the world dies. no joke. way too young... Lung cancer... He didn't even smoke... i was really mad at the world there for a while and i made my first attempt at a blog. Its just a one page website that i added to a website that i run for my folks. The hosting service comes with "unlimited websites" (we're probably up to five websites on that host by now) I added comments and just kept making the page longer on a sporadic basis until March of 2005. (the software wasn't set up to be a "blog" so its presented as a letter that i continue writing to my friend) The page still exists, i read it every once in a while but i haven't updated it since around mid '05 when i rearranged the page a little.

April 2006:Several things have happened that i need to note on the letter to my friend - guess its time to re-read it and update it. And that brings me up to now - here i am actually using "blogging" software (my mother will be so proud :-)