A Second Start

Hello all.

Some of you may have seen my old Darwinfish blog on the Verizon site. I apologize for letting that site go. I last posted there in December 2007 and haven't really been back since. Why?

The short answer is that I didn't really feel I had the time to post any longer... which is still true. But I think the real problem was with the way I was posting. I'd wait until I had a fantastic idea, write 2 or 3 page essay and spend the next couple days rewriting and wordsmithing before publishing. That's why I only had 17 posts in a year and a half.

In my time since then, I've been reading a number of other blogs and kind of trawling for ideas and inspirations. I eventually came to the conclusion that I needed to post shorter entries... not everything had to be a 2-page essay.

One of my favorite blogs was the now defunct "The 'Burgh Blog" by "PittGirl". I thought she was brilliant, posting once or twice a day. She'd always leave me happy, sad, angry, usually laughing, but always entertained. I often wondered what kind of job she had where she could come up with these posts during business hours. I was stunned to hear that she said she averaged about 15 minutes per post.

Now I have no illusions that I can blog as well as she did, but it did make me realize that I can still make a blog that I'm proud of without agonizing over every word. More importantly, I don't have to wait for the "fantastic ideas". (And believe me, they were few and far between.) What happens far more often to me is that I get a "notion" that may make for a couple of good paragraphs. So that's what I'm going to go with. Granted, when the "fantastic idea" does come, I'll be happy to give it the full treatment.

In the meantime, I plan on posting about all sorts of things... Those that know me know that I'm devoted to the Pittsburgh Steelers and Pittsburgh Penguins. I'm sure they will be recurring subjects. I'd also like to post about movies, music, TV, politics and everything else that's going on.

My last site got to be too heavy... too many tabs doing too many things. Plus, I was always pushing the file capacity ceiling. I don't know yet if this site has limits, but I suppose I'll find out. I'll need to find out a lot of things. One of the benefits of my last site was that it was all done with templates. This site uses html, of which I know very little. I expect this blog will grow in scope and complexity as I learn how to do more.

I find myself excited as I begin this new project. I hope you'll come along for the ride.