I realised recently that this blog has been running for almost five years, and has accumulated over sixty posts. That’s not many posts by most standards (about one a month — pathetic, really, and not evenly), but actually a hell of a lot more than I expected to post. I was surprised by this realisation.
Therefore I figure it’s time to make this site live. Yes, although this blog has existed for a few months short of half a decade, it has not actually been available on the Web until now. Rather than making a decision about a hypothetical blog, I decided to set this up and treat it as if it was live, and after a while I’d see how it actually worked for me in practice. What I have learnt is that my standard for accuracy won’t allow me to post as often as I’d like. (Perhaps one day I’ll set up a Twitter account for those brief flashes of off-the-cuff genius and annoyance.) However, whether I post once a day or once a month, the fact is that the mere existence of this blog gives me an outlet. Sometimes it’s just to vent, and sometimes it’s so that I can add to the body of knowledge (that I often consult) available on the Web on a subject about which I know a little bit.
So, this post is the first one to be public from the get-go. While I have long considered running a blog and it appeals to the exhibitionist and editorialist in me, I have been very ambivalent about actually doing so. Like most things, there are pros and cons … and there are definitely some very good arguments against doing this. However, at the end of the day, I have decided that the pros (and some specific goals) outweigh the cons, and here we are. I’m not doing this for fame or fortune, that’s for sure, but hey … everyone needs a hobby, and the ones I’d like to engage in (or do more of) are more expensive than cocaine (whatever that costs).
One of the reasons it has taken me five years to get to this point is my penchant for perfectionism alluded to above … something that will greatly limit my posting as much stuff as I would like. While I realise that there are many blogs out there where all you know about the owner is that his name is Bob, I actually do want to provide enough information about myself and my biases that people might take what I say reasonably seriously, without wanting to knock on my door and donate a knuckle sandwich (or worse). A blog’s “about” page is usually my first stop after reading whatever post led me there, and it is my intention to make mine useful. However, if I wait for the day I finally craft an “about” page that meets my standards (or do the many other projects on my to-do list for this blog), this will never go live. (My notes for it already amount to two thousand words.) For now, if you visit my “about” page, you’ll see the same thing I’ve had on my static site for years, but eventually I’ll have something more comprehensive there.
Anyway, that is all. Let’s see where this leads.