Blogs and Bloggers

I began my blog on July 28, 2005. I had been lurking around the edges of what is now called the blogosphere since the end of the last century. Let me repeat that phrase, “The end of the last century!!” There was a specific and rather personal reason why I read my first blog and that blog led me to a few bloggers whom I like to refer to as the old timers. For the most part they intimidated me. They were all American, they could be generalized as “womens’ libbers”, they were mostly thirty or so years younger than me. I was trying recently to do some research; I can’t find most of them on line now. Even the ones I can find have changed the name of their blog, killed their archives and made it pretty much impossible to locate them.  I seem to remember that they organized a yearly meeting called Journal Con, Com?,  but I am having trouble tracking it down to check on the details. It was held in various American cities.  There were talks and round tables and lots of drinking in the hotel bars. I would never have dared go near them. They did attract an odd person from across the Atlantic. I remember a woman from Ireland with the distinctive name of Caoimhe. So though I lurked, I kept my distance.

As I read their blogs, I eventually noticed a distinct similarity between the layouts. Eventually. I am not too tech oriented and although I thought vaguely of setting up my own blog, I realized, quite correctly, that it involved html, which was as foreign to me as Greek was to most of the bloggers. Yes, there were lots of blogs out there which looked the same. By this time I had been retired for five years. If I had still been working I would not have got away with not noticing that little orange square to the left of a blue bar. One day, and it must have been July 28, 2005, I also noticed the words they had in that blue bar back then. “”create your own blog” or words to that effect. So I clicked on it, and all of a sudden, I had my own blog. No sand box, no practice, but a real, live blog.

I have a lot more to say, but in the mean time, I would be interested to know how or why any of you started your blog.