This is my 8,755th post. It is not a nice round number like 8,700 or 8,800. It does represent a lot of words, sentences, and paragraphs about...stuff.
On March 22, 2005. I was working in a house converted into an office building. I occupied a room on the top floor. I think there was a credit union downstairs. Some local government entity filled out the rest of the ground floor. The rooms to either side of my upstairs office were little studio apartments converted from bedrooms. My company was based in Italy and I was the only employee in the US. My task was to grow the business from almost nothing (I tripled the business in a little over three years).
I had worked remotely at that point in my career for about eight years. That wasn't an issue. The problem was I had little to no contact with anyone in the company. Our product offering was narrow, and you can only cold call the same potential customers so many times. I could only visit my existing customers so often. Frankly, I was bored. I had no one to talk to for large chunks of the week. I was expected to keep the international calls to the main plant to a minimum. Time zones and language would have made it difficult anyway, even if cost wasn't an issue.
By random chance I discovered blogs. Grouchy Old Cripple led me to Velociman, who brought me to Gut Rumbles, and I was hooked. After a couple of months I thought "I have stories, I have opinions, I could do this." In college my professors said I was a competent writer. Why not?
So on this date in 2005 I launched this piece o'crap blog. Was I goofing off from work? Yes, did I get my job done also? Yes.
It was my intention to shut down this hobby last year. Twenty years is a nice round number. But here we are at twenty-one and counting. I'm not quitting. My posts may become more sporadic. I find I have way fewer stories and a lot less opinions than I used to. Arguing politics on the internet doesn't interest me much these days. A big chunk of people are just plain wrong. Another large group is crazy. Quite a few more are, well, dumb as Hell. Those who do not fit those categories agree with me anyway.
In my usual manner, here are a lot of words to say thanks for reading. I offer up an internet toast to the many blogs that have come and gone from my blog roll, to the internet friends I have made, to those who are no longer with us. Thanks for the entertainment. Thanks for being there in good times and bad. This is a strange community, but I sure enjoy it.
