16 Years of blogging

This weekend marks an anniversary. I’ve been publishing articles and photos online for over 16 years. It might even be longer if you count forums and newsletters. I sometime wonder at my own motivation to stay with it for so long. Maybe a cry for attention. I was the first born in the family and grew quite comfortable with attention that came with that.

Blogging platform – Blogger

The Beginning – December 16, 2006

When New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson made an appearance in New Ipswich, NH I decided to write it up as my first blog entry. It was obvious that he was going run in the New Hampshire Presidential Primary and I felt like I was a witness to history. However my entry was lacking in details. I had no photos of the event, I didn’t even bother to bring a camera. I had a nice chat with the Governor and his staff but I didn’t bother to write down the day it happened. Looking back 16 years, I remember it was cold and the venue was held in a large heated tent. There was lots of complimentary wine available and I enjoyed talking with his security detail. I wasn’t the best reporter, or a seasoned blogger.

Later I revisited my entry and added a photo of Bill taken a year later when he attended the Greenville 4th of July “Pots and Pans” parade. I decided I needed a photo for each post even if it didn’t completely match. So much for editorial integrity.

I wasn’t a very prolific blogger back in those days. It would March before I added new content, a post about Vermicomposting, a recurrent topic which continues to interest me.

Will Blogger go the way of Picasa?

When I started this enterprise, I was enamored with Google tools: Gmail, Picasa, Groups, and Blogger. Later I would add Google Plus to that mix. However after expending time and effort adding content, some of those tools were discontinued such as Picasa which was a wonderful free photo application. Google Plus was dropped after I had created a family group and convinced family members to join. Groups morphed into something unusable. However Blogger continued to be useful. However I had good reason to not to trust the longevity of these “free” tools. I decided to move my efforts to WordPress, probably the most popular blogging platform. My first posting was a Hello World post on April 18, 2008.

Blogging platform – WordPress (Self-Hosted)

WordPress needs to be hosted on a server. There are two versions, the free version WordPress.com is hosted on a WordPress server with limited customization, the WordPress.org version is self-hosted which costs money. However there is a lot more that can be done with the use of plugins. in August 8, 2018 I decided to become self-hosted. I was serious enough about publishing that I was willing to pay for it. My first posting on my self-hosted site was another in my series of introductions, this time an introduction to My Strange Life.

2023 plans

After 16 years, I’m fairly comfortable with this medium. I’ve branched out in some ways by editing a Newsletter for the New Ipswich Historical Society. I’ve learned something from that. Everyday I include diary entries from two men. One was a prominent artist studying in France in 1897 and the other was a Farmer in New Ipswich, NH in 1908. What I have learned is how important and interesting it to chronicle your own life. They committed their words to paper. Mine are ephemeral, mere digital bits somewhere in the cloud. However I have the advantage of being able to share them with larger audience. Thank you dear readers for that.