I wanted to send a quick post on a series of unconnected topics – some related to the site and some related to the Site.
First and foremost, after putzing around with WordPress for a couple of weeks, it looks like I’ve finally managed to design a working “Contact Me” page. I’m no web designer and this project has been a true learning experience for me. My 20 year old son loves to laugh about all this and never hesitates to remind me that I’m doing something that’s old news for most members of his generation somewhere around age 10. I wish I could dispute the point but have to admit – to myself – that he’s probably right. Nevertheless, this has been a learning adventure for me and what might appear to be small victories for a teenager tend to be major accomplishments for me. Getting this “Contact Me” page to work falls into the major accomplishment category and it’s providing me with an inordinate amount of satisfaction. I hope some of you will take advantage of the new feature and send a quick note.
Secondly, a quick update with respect to how this is going. This Blog is a long term project for me. I used to write a fair bit and there was a time when I thought I might try to write professionally – sometime around those Middle School – Early High School years. It was a time when I spent almost every available minute reading everything I could get my hands on – when I could still buy a new book at 5:30 PM on Friday afternoon – stay up all night reading – finish it about the time the sun came up – then fall off to sleep for 4 or 5 hours – wake up and start the cycle all over again. It was easy to trick myself – at the time – into thinking that I might not just read books but write them as well and I made a few attempts at writing creatively – still have some of that stuff down in my basement.
At some point during my Junior Year in High School, however, that all changed. I started running track, I started debating and girls became a serious object of interest. I never stopped reading but I wrote less and less.
College provided additional diversions. I enrolled in a pretty demanding undergraduate degree program – Plan II at the University of Texas at Austin. I pledged a Fraternity – Sigma Chi – and that became the center of almost everything I chose to do for awhile. From there, I transitioned to Law School – also at UT – more demanding that my undergraduate program. With the exception of the writing I did for school – both High School and College – it kind of disappeared from my life.
That continued to be the case as I left school and started working. I got married. I had children. Things got very very busy. For almost 30 years, almost everything I wrote either took the form of an email or wound up embedded in a PowerPoint presentation.
Computers also came along and – with them – computer games. I continued to read but what little spare time I had somehow managed to be sucked up into my gaming. I blame Blizzard – Warcraft and Starcraft and Diablo and World Of Warcraft. That company and the amazing games they designed became my go to hobby. I’m terrified to think about what I might find if I logged onto my Blizzard account and added up all the hours I spent playing their games over the course of the last 20 years.
Something changed over Christmas Break last year. The children are off to college now. I’m in a good place at work – busy and happy and in a consciously competent phase that takes a lot of the stress out of my daily routine. I come home every day with energy still to burn. My wife is busy with her work and generally has an hour or two after dinner where she’s occupied. I’ve stepped away from my gaming – I still have fun with it – just not nearly as much. I think I was ready for something new.
My wife and I are also at the point where we’re starting to think about retirement and what it might hold. One crazy idea that keeps coming up in conversation is the idea of an independent bookstore – something I think we’d both really love to do – or the possibility of buying and selling books online. While that’s not likely to happen – it’s just one of a hundred things we talk about doing – I did find myself sitting down in front of the computer last year in December – watching an online tutorial about building a Blog. Before I knew it, I’d registered a website, built it out and authored a couple of posts. It felt surprisingly good to finally write again.
Here’s the shocker – at least to me – I’ve kept at it. It’s gotten to the point where the week just doesn’t feel complete unless I’ve put up a couple of posts. That’s gone hand in hand with a lot of additional reading time – due largely to the fact that I haven’t logged onto a game in over a month. I’ve got free time, I’m reading a lot more, I have a Site, I write about what I’m reading and I’m enjoying the heck out of it. I hope others are as well. Cheers