Today marks the 26th anniversary of starting this very weblog. I had a personal web site since 1997, but 2000 marks when I began traditional blogging.
My first post was celebrating getting a blogging system known as NewsPro running. In the beginning I was mainly blogging about Ultima Online, the MMO I was playing at the time.
The internet was very different at the time. There was no Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Wikipedia. There were no smartphones, streaming video, podcasts, or mainstream broadband. Storage was measured in megabytes, not gigabytes.
In January 2000, we were still in the era of dial-up internet, desktop computers, flip phones, DVDs, and broadcast television.
The change over the last 26 years is mind-blowing when you step back and look at it.
I changed over the years as well, going from the father of toddlers to an empty nester. My blogging evolved with me, from video games and daily routines to writing about the nascent social media and blogging scene.
Sometime in 2002 I moved from NewsPro to MovableType. At the time, the software was revolutionary.
Beyond this personal weblog, I was also experimenting in the corporate world, getting my maintenance team to write about what they did on their shifts online as opposed to paper logbooks.
I remember sending a check for $200 to Ben & Mena Trott to license the Walt Disney Company to use Movable Type. I spoke at conferences about using blogging in the workplace.
When digital cameras became affordable I was able to incorporate more images and even post video.
My first page to go viral was about making a smoker from a trash can. Another was about hacking my Tivo.
In those days, comments were de rigueur on weblogs and the first appearance of spam and bad actors arrived, and the endless attempts to counter them were met with varying levels of success. At the time, the dopamine from nice comments outweighed the headache of spammers.
I wrote about everything from experiments I was doing making gunpowder to keeping track of Halloween costumes.
As the world of microblogging on Twitter, Facebook, and other sites took off, my blogging started to dwindle.
I started posting on Medium for a bit, but was mainly stuck on Twitter.
Making video content became easier and easier and I started making videos about my hobbies like beekeeping and video games on YouTube.
Places to share on Reddit, Discords, and Slacks were abundant. But you can be at the mercy of moderators of varying attitudes and commenters that try to make you feel bad.
As social media became a slurry of AI slop, influencers, and bots, I realized I needed a space I could actually control, one not beholden to CEOs chasing the latest hype cycle.
In 2024, thanks to help from my friend Greg, we got this blog up and running again. Greg helped me move to WordPress, which is the de facto standard these days.
I still make videos and post them here, but also make actual blog posts about things that interest me.
I’m not trying to make money or become a dadfluencer, just happy to have a little space on the net for myself.
There is no amazing revelation or realization after 26 years of blogging.
I have no idea if people are reading what I write, and it really doesn’t matter.
It gets the ideas out of the whirlwind in my head so I can make space for new things.
I’m just happy to keep my little corner of the interwebs tidy.
Twenty-six years on, I’m still writing, not because it’s strategic or visible, but because I enjoy it.
