Well alright then, it looks like we were dealt Blackjack this time ’round the sun. So far so good with 2021, but it’s only been a day eh? I mean I can’t imagine it could be worse than 2020, but well, God help us if it is.
Last night the family rang in the new year quietly at home. It was a nice evening all around, and as you can see by the image of one of the boys above, we did a bit of sparkler-based celebrating.
However, the video below shows twin #2 also enjoying his sparklers, up until the moment he knocks a spark onto his own face. Mom laughing at the end is the icing on the cake.
Hey, remember when I started a blog? How has that been going anyway?
Let’s see, three total posts in 2011, all from last January, one of which was also titled “New Year, New Look”. Pathetic!
Hopefully this will be a better year for me to be inspired, but don’t hold your breath.
Having said that, I am making a change that will hopefully encourage me to post more often. I’ll be merging this blog, and my Tumblr account, to create an uber-blog to rule them all. To that end, I need to shuffle some files and settings with my web hosting provider.
You may have noticed a new look to the ol’ blog. I’m still figuring out how I want all this to work, and this easy-on-the-eyes theme seemed like a nice step. I’m also working on my integration with some or all of these other blogging and Internet services. Originally my goal was to find a way to integrate everything: WordPress (this blog), Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Flickr, YouTube, Instaram…
Currently, when I post to this blog, I also “announce” that post via Tumblr, which also propagates to Twitter and Facebook. I don’t know if that’s the best solution, but it’s what I came up with when I started this whole thing. You may wonder why I even have a Tumblr, seeing as how this WordPress site is my primary blog. Again, I’m not entirely sure myself, but so far I (like most people it seems) tend to use Tumblr to share random bits of Internet goodness, and use WordPress for longer, text-heavy posts.
I may rethink these approaches, but for now it’s what I’ve got. Maybe using disparate tools in some sort of political-esque talking-point-stay-on-message onslaught is not necessarily the best use of those tools. Also, I don’t want to spam people. Next thing you know I might be “woofing” all my posts:
So anyway, dear reader, I am working on the right level of self-exposure for 2011, but rest assured I will keep this going with such topics as travel, photography, infrastructure, transparency, technology, media overload, and maybe, just maybe I will be become a first-time homeowner in 2011 and write about that.
Heh, heh, I said homo…
Okay, and on that note, thanks for checking in, and Happy New Year!
For years I have been toying with the idea of starting something like this. My plans never fully coalesced until recently, but there was always something simmering.
Lately though the simmer has become a boil. Between a major shift in my job responsibilities several months ago, and planning and executing an incredible DIY wedding with my sweetheart, this tumultuous year has forced my hand — I need a creative outlet.
Assisting in shaping this current headspace has been Arcade Fire’s new album The Suburbs. It’s basically been on a constant loop in my car, house and headphones. It’s a smart, sprawling, beautiful album, that really speaks to me as the kid who escaped the miserable desert suburbs of Tucson.
But the album (and life) are not that simple. After a dozen or more listens, I am seeing past the obvious criticisms of “the burbs” and now finding nuance. There is wonderful nostalgia in some of the songs, about things like riding bikes, learning to drive, writing letters, and late-night makeout sessions at the neighborhood park. These are genuine, lovely memories, which quite frankly are hard to accept in the context of my overt disdain for the suburban living arrangement.
And let’s be real, this kid is now a 30-something man. I’m just not the same zine-making, skateboard-riding, punk-rock-listening angry youth. Today in fact is my 36th birthday, which means I have now spent half of my life as an adult, a point not lost on me as I spent Saturday a couple weeks ago record shopping and lollygagging around Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley. School was about to get under way, and hordes of freshmen were wandering around, parents and siblings in tow. It struck me then that I was witnessing a part of the same journey that I had taken 18 years prior, when my Mom and I road-tripped from Tucson to Berkeley, and she dropped me off at the Unit 3 dorms. “That was half my life ago” I said to myself as I looked around. These kids must have been wondering what the creepy old guy with the mustache and wedding ring was doing in their midst, drinking beer without getting carded, and what’s this, shopping for CD’s at Amoeba?
CD’s??? Who is that weird guy?
It’s a rhetorical question of course, but maybe working on this blog will help me figure that out a bit. I don’t entirely know where I’m going with it, and it’s going to be an experiment. A lot of blogs are executed with a real sense of motivation, showcasing the blogger as a chef, an entrepreneur, a journalist, or what-have-you. But I have enough interests that I don’t want to limit myself to just one of them, and truth be told, I’m not spectacular enough at anything to dedicate a whole blog to it.
Conversely a lot of blogs follow the old “here’s-a-place-for-my-random-thoughts” approach. They tend to ramble from post to post, seemingly with no real purpose. Honestly I’m scared I’ll fall too far into this category. Yes, I am obviously looking for a personal creative outlet, but no, I don’t want to become a navel-gazing-attention-whore.
Hopefully I’ll land somewhere between these two styles, with a consistent, yet interesting and diverse approach to my blogging.
Future generations will have to decide if I have been successful or not. For now though, it’s time for bed.
