Sunday, December 18, 2005

My First Blog Entry - Ever!

I have been resisting this blog thing. I have a few ideas why, perhaps, but I have reconciled that I probably should just stop resisting. It is patently apparent that this is not just another passing fad. Moreover, as an aspiring writer/journalist, it would behoove me to exploit any technology that will advance my career and expose my thoughts to more than just a select few. I must admit that making my musings publicly available is somewhat intimidating, but what the hey…

I am not one to jump on the bandwagon. I have been primarily a follower and not a leader. I generally don’t like commitment and prefer to wait and see. Unless of course, it is a thing that is already in my realm of experience; that requires little or no effort to be “accomplished;” that has immediate and considerable dividends; that boosts my self-esteem; you know – that I’m good at. In my assessment, blogging posed too much risk.

To be fair, it is not the technological platform that intimidates me. Indeed, I have been into computers and networking not since the beginning, but very early on. Therefore, I have a great deal of knowledge – expert knowledge – of the inner workings of computers, their hardware, protocols and the like. Unfortunately, I somehow missed the boat that became known as the World Wide Web.

Without going into a lot of unnecessary (but interesting) details, a series of events in my life combined with (or exacerbated by) choices I made took me away from the computer industry just as the Internet really took off. I had limited my involvement to that of tinkering with hardware that was turning obsolete overnight and immersion into the endless diversions that the web offered. By the time I had come up for air, the dust was already settling. What I knew that was of value was next to worthless. I had become an end-user.

By the time I had re-entered school (another equally interesting series of events…but I’ll save these adventures for future entries), my prior life in the high technology world was of little value. However, I had apparently picked up some skill in assembling words and punctuation in a way that made some sense. I guess I always kinda-sorta knew, but now there was external and professional validation. Cool, right? I mean how much, other than word processing, could writing be affected by technology?

Since you're reading this, you probably already know. Still, I resisted for a couple of years. Why? Likely, fear. Toss in some procrastination and you get a writer that can write and has the technical knowledge, experience and the ability to learn how to create and maintain a blog and the knowledge that doing so has evolved into a “turn-key” endeavor and the intelligence to know that blogs and other forms of on-line journalism and writing are the wave of the future and that he better get used to it and yet he waits until almost 2006. Whew!

But it’s never too late. So here it is for you to read, comment on (or not), and enjoy. Better late than never.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Wow...I'm commenting on your first post! (As you say, 'better late than never!)

This is a cool blog. Thank you for always visiting my blogs, even though I can't physically type every single day, anymore, I do appreciate that fact that you visit and comment all of the time.

So, better late than never, welcome to the world of bloggin!!

:)

carmilevy said...

Hi Mike. I thought I'd dig deep into your archives and see where it all began.

Your observations on your relative knowledge of technology are interesting: I've often witnessed a significant divide between pre-Web and post-Web folks. It was most pronounced at the insurance company where I worked.

There, folks old enough to be my parents could teach me more about mainframes than anyone on the planet. But they were clueless when it came to newer client/server and Internet-based technologies and processes.

Such a fast-paced world we live in.

Anonymous said...

any more posts coming ?