10 years is both a lifetime, and an instant.

I was looking through my list of bookmarks of people that had personal websites, you know “blogs” and whatnot and I noticed that they are pretty much all either abandoned, with their last updates stretching back to years ago, or they just plain don’t exist anymore. It used to be that all kinds of people were interested in putting up their own content, writings, pictures, or whatever, I even hosted some of them on the webhosting that I pay for to keep this site running (I still host my mom’s but she hasn’t put anything new up since February). Now it seems like everyone does all their writing and sharing in one place, and one place only… Facebook. If you aren’t on Facebook then you are dead to the world as far as the internet is concerned. I got pretty addicted to it for a while as well like most people seem to and still post on there directly sometimes, but I’m trying to wean myself off of looking at it all the time. No need to compare other people’s highlight reel to your own everyday life on a daily basis. This website hasn’t changed all that much, I’ve had it running continuously without much interruption now for over a decade with the new versions of WordPress that run the guts of it underneath getting updated with slicker and fancier features that I don’t really use. I’ve had to change with the times to keep it relevant by syndicating it to Facebook whenever we post something new so someone will actually read it since people don’t seem to go visit websites on their own anymore looking for new content. Maybe one of these days I will find a slick new theme to put on there to freshen it up a bit… don’t seem to have the time or energy to do that most of the time. 10 years is a long time to have something like this running though, when I started it I was eternally single and very bitter, lived with a roommate in his basement, and worked an almost minimum wage job while finishing up my community college degree. Since then I’ve moved 6 times, got my bachelors with honors, got a good job where I’ve worked up to getting OK money, not rich by any step of the imagination but not struggling, married a great woman and have a wonderful, smart, sometimes shithead of a son, own my own home, and in general… have a pretty good life. Life is a lot better than it was back then, and for that I am very grateful.

Still have the same dog though, only much older, grumpier, smellier and with a few less teeth…