One of the major activities he focused on during his talk was his blog. At the time, I had only the vaguest idea of what a blog was (okay, I'd heard the word but that was about it). As he read excerpts from his online journal, I became more and more intrigued. I had started journaling several times but never stuck to it because, in my head, I was writing for an audience. I never stuck with any of the journals because I had an audience of zero. There was nobody to share things with so it was no fun.
Shortly after the convention was over, I began to explore this blog thing. I found that there was free blog hosting with free blogging tools and happened to land on Blogger. I've heard some malign Blogger as the AOL of blogging but I've been pretty happy.
At first, Blogger had some reliability problems. It was quite easy to navigate away from the editor and lose everything you typed. It also often hiccupped when you hit publish with the same deleterious effects. That's exactly what happened to my first post... it just went away into the great bit-bucket in the sky. The original name, I believe (hey, you're asking me to remember what my thoughts were during about an hour period that occurred six years ago, gimme a break), was Star Trek Memories or something similarly lame but after my truly inspired eloquence (seriously, it was a good) disappeared, thus was born The Internet Ate My Homework.
Over the years, Blogger has become more reliable and they have added many features and many tools. Overall it's been a good run and I'm quite happy to stick with them. I've thought about moving my blog to my own space but had trouble moving the comments with it and realized that, should I decide to stop paying for my hosting service and shut down unclebubby.com, my blog goes with it.
The past six years have had their ups and downs. I've found my voice and lost my voice. I've been too busy to blog and I've had time to be voluminously verbose. I've told some wonderful stories, I've done a few drive-bys, and I've even phoned it in a few times. Let's take a look back over the past six years and see what gems we find, shall we?
- I still remember my encounter with Robin Curtis at Trek Expo 2003
- I never did get to The Secret Cow Level
- So began my season in Hell
- I lamented the end of Saturday Morning TV
- I went on a memorable fishing trip with my dad
- I salvaged Thanksgiving
- I started one of my passions, candlemaking
- I wrote my favorite blog post, ever
- Now you know why I can't sleep in
- My season in Hell continued
- I experienced a really shitty day (no, I'm not going to softball it)
- I lost the first dog I ever had (it still brings a tear to my eye)
- Simple memories
- I met John Doe (swear to God!)
- I believe in angels
- Attack of the shoes
- I broke my lawnmower
- More fishing with dad
- The season in Hell started to end
- I remember the best Independence Day ever
- Never was lawn mowing so intriguing
- No, I didn't lose my mind, I was just playing with words.
- I lamented not spending my last dollar for James Doohan's autograph
- I remember 9-11 and many other memorable events in my lifetime
- My friend, Eric, was knighted in the SCA
- An explanation of the season in Hell
- A good idea that was never executed (to maybe avoid another season in Hell)
- I discussed some fundamental differences between the way my wife and I think about money
- A funny headline
- I had a flashback to an old part-time job
- Remembering my grandparents' house
- I shared my favorite Christmas memory
- I answered an age-old question
- I shared some funny email spam subjects
- My father-in-law passed away (Feb. 13, 2005)
- I attended my 20-year High School reunion
- flang
- I finally got out of Hell
- You have to be patient to make candles
- Spent some time with family during the holidays
- After switching jobs, I still found it difficult to find time to blog Much of 2005 and 2006 is pretty sparse (and I never did get to hire that 2nd assistant)
- Tigers and Springfield and the Tulsa Fair, oh my!
- I learned what German food is really supposed to be like
- We took our last trip to Winter Park, CO
- Things started to look not so good on the work front
- We added to our family
- 2006 in a nutshell
- Life went topsy turvey: I got laid off
- Then I got hired
- I started listening to podcasts (I don't make time for them lately for some reason)
- But I never actually started the job
- We moved to Boise, ID
- We started to settle in
- We were reminded what it's like to have a landlord
- I went back to Oklahoma to finish clearing out the house (which never quite got emptied)
- I turned 40
- I got part time work while looking for full time work
- My blogging story
- I had trouble finding good restaurants in Boise
- I had trouble finding a doctor in Boise
- I sniffed a scam in my job search
- I did a little stargazing in Boise
- I began to doubt our move
- But found solace
- The unemployment ran out
- And the bottom fell out a week later
- And we started to pack to head back home to Oklahoma
- We were moving home and I was ready for it
- I learned that my dog, JD, was very sick
- I told our other dog about it
- JD didn't make it home with us... and it still hurts
- I decided to stop going to Taco Bell (and I haven't been back since)
- We made it home and I got a week's worth of work under my belt
- I was very thankful
- This about sums up 2007
- I was going to photograph my niece's wedding... but decided I'd rather attend the wedding
- I got a Microsoft Zune... for free
- I moved my website to a new host (GoDaddy) which I am still very pleased with
- I worked on jazzing up my blog with a banner
- There was a busy weekend of buying, bargaining, and building
- I was still missing JD
- I got some new tools to install some laminate flooring that still hasn't been installed
- I performed an unexpected upgrade on my computer
- I had an awesome night at the movies (even though the movie was so-so)
- For the first time, I intentionally skipped Trek Expo
- Just another weekend
- We all got a chance to see SNL at its roots
- I saved a life
- Life took a turn for the better
- And had an interesting last day at work (FYI - turns out it was IBS and I'm still struggling with it)
- I learned just how bad CFLs are
- I finally got a smart phone
- Anabelle's first Christmas
- I made some New Year resolutions... and I need to start following a couple of them
- I finally started transferring my dad's Beatles records to digital format
- I needed a replacement remote... so I went overboard
- I killed my 'evil twin' (although his ghost seems to be hanging around)
- An unintentional experiment
- Google AdWords finally paid off
- It was finally time to say goodbye to my little Nikita (she was my first pet ever)
- I started to like my smart phone not so much
- I pegged a Survivor contestant as a pathological liar
- I found an old friend
- My sister said goodbye to her Sam Cody
- I phoned it in
- I had a winning weekend
- I resolved some of my phone woes with an unofficial official update
- I became an iPod owner... twice over... and ended up having to fix the second one myself
- I remembered why I started this thing and started telling my stories
- I had a different experience at Trek Expo 2009
One thing I noticed as I was compiling this list. For the first three years, I was telling stories. Then, I was just bitching about work for the most part. After that what I wrote about was in the now. Finally, I think I've come back to what I wanted this to be and will start telling stories once again.
Thank you, everyone who has been with me and those who have just found me. Here's to many more years to come.
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