I started a weekly email newsletter on August 2, 1996 I called the Ford Crier. It's irregularity turned into my annual Christmas letter for my family and friends. By 1999 I started posting a monthly web-page that was very blog-like. I was able to archive those old HTML pages in this blog site along with those email newsletters, after I found a box of printed emails my mom saved. I started blogging "for real" on Monday, April 18, 2005 for my mom and family in California. I used a free (at that time) webhosting internet service called Angelfire, where my homepage and website were hosted. My old Angelfire blog is now deleted but those posts are all transferred to this one.
In May 2007 a company from the UK asked me to blog for them and that is how I found Typepad. To get to that blog, one needed a password, so I was very open about the stuff I shared there. I wrote entries from May through August 2007 for GFK but the site has since been removed before I was able to copy over all of the entries (almost everything I wrote from June and July '07 is gone). The posts that were transferred over to this site were heavily edited since they would be available to the public. I have had to learn to edit myself more and more as my blog has become known to my students and colleagues.
I still love blogging. While in the past, I blogged primarily for my mother, there were a few others that followed along occasionally. Now that my mom has passed I am reluctant to give it up. I find the blogging process creative; it is like painting or taking pictures. I am trying to be a better writer, make an impression with my words, working diligently to be concise. I continue to practice to write, understanding that what isn’t written is sometimes as important as what is. My hope is to write a book someday, but in the meantime I'm still blogging.
As of September 30, 2020 the 10 most popular posts on this site in past 15 years have been:
- With Great Sadness 2/12/14-- about the passing of Bruce Dahmen
- The Four Temperaments 1/01/2011- my take on the temperaments
- When Bad News Gets Worse 4/28/15- about my mom's cancer
- Pull 'em Up 10/25/11-- about sagging pants
- Balt is in Jail 08/23/17 -- about Balt going to the dog pound
- Celebrate Life 2/16/14 -- about Bruce's life service
- It's not time to say goodbye 05/22/17 -- about my dad's death
- There is peace 08/01/20 -- about my mom dying
- A Fallen Hero 12/3/13-- about a teacher's death
- Plebe Summer FYI & I-Day, part 2 6/26/13-- about Plebe Summer & Jessi's Induction Day at USNA
Now that my mom is gone, I wonder who is out there reading my blog and why. I've had students tell me they love it, maybe it assures them I'm just a normal person. When I look at Google Analytics and see what pages are getting the most hits, it's the not so normal days. The day someone dies, I post a strong opinion, go to the dentist or travel somewhere. On February 12, 2014, I had the most hits ever to my blog-- about 2,250 page views-- that was was the day my principal died. The reality is I average about 5 to 10 hits per day. To be honest, I was never writing for hits. It was always for my mom and now, I guess it's just for me.