Blog Archives Now Complete

It only took four and a half years, but my blog archives are now complete. All 2,370 entries going back to Dec. 5, 1998 are now available right here. No more going back to the hand-coded pages on the utterly defunct ReALMagazine.com (may it rest in peace).

It’s kind of weird reading blog entries from nine years ago. Back then I didn’t even know what the word ‘blog’ meant.


The Cryptic Blogger
My writing style has also changed a lot in nine years. I used to write in a cryptic and free form style. If you didn’t know me and know what was going on in my life you’d usually have no idea what I was talking about. It was kind of annoying.

But if you can read between the lines you can figure out when big moments happened, like the beginning of the end of a three-year relationship, the beginnings of a new relationship, and the short-lived end of my parents’ marriage (who knew ‘that too would pass’?). And sometimes I completely skip over big moments (I guess blogging isn’t everything) and talk about them after the fact, making inane comments like, “So far the coolest thing about being married is the ring.” Eventually I did give up the cryptic act and just played it straight.

The Swiftly Changing Internets
In addition to my style, the web itself changed a lot in nine years. Very few of the links from those original posts still worked. Most went off to long forgotten sites that have since fallen prey to cyber-squatters. I ended up leaving out a lot of the old urls–a vague reference to a link but no link seemed better than a broken link.

I find the broken links troubling, but I guess that’s just the transitory and temporary nature of blogging. A blog entry is a snapshot in time, and as soon as it’s posted it’s out of date.

A Good Laugh
But among the broken links and cryptic remarks, I did come across a couple posts that just made me laugh:

When Tim returned from England:

I think the best comment I’ve heard so far is when somebody said, “Hey Tim, you’re back. Say something English.” For me it clicked that Tim was back when he stretched out on the floor with a pillow. All that was missing was a book he was way behind in reading.

And a great quote from Josh Lewis!:

“If I had more of the qualities of Kermit the Frog, I’d be a great guy.”

Going Forward
Now that my archives are finally complete, it’s time I move on to a new blogging system and mess everything up again. For those curious, I’m contemplating a switch to WordPress. I still haven’t decided if this is a good thing or incredibly stupid.

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