Welcome!

This is the first post in my new blog.

I’m hoping that a year from now, I’ll look back here and be profoundly embarrassed at how little I knew about blogs and blogging when I started. To be honest, it’s a little intimidating right now. Believe me, I know I have a lot to learn. As time passes — and I know from experience that it does — this blog will improve, in terms of both content and design.

So why do I do this? Well, I’ve been on Facebook for a year or so, and while I enjoy that community, it feels very limited in terms of how much one can express one’s self. For instance, I can do a status about a good run I’ve had, but a status update doesn’t give me a whole lot of room to describe just HOW good it was. And then if I have more thoughts about running the next day and do another status, I start to sound one-dimensional – the guy who just posts about his running (and don’t worry, I DO know how boring that would become).

I also want to use this to try out some different kinds of writing. I deal with words a lot at work, of course, and I do some writing that’s strictly for myself, but I’d like to do more “public” writing that’s, frankly, not about barges.

So this blog will cover a lot of ground: running, writing, photography, politics, and other topics. I’ll try to keep it fresh, but you should know that I do tend to surf various obsessions for a while. I might get into writing for a few weeks and spend most of my waking time thinking about it, and you’ll get a lot of blog posts relating to writing goals, plans on how I’m going to have a novel published within a year, etc. And then something else will take over and I’ll suddenly be writing posts about photoshop techniques or chess openings or something going on in politics. That’s why this will never be a blog “about” anything in particular — but hopefully there will be enough variety here to at least make you want to check back once in a while.

And hey, feel free to comment on anything you see here that you find interesting. I’d love to hear from you!

This first post is on February 16 for a reason: it’s Mardi Gras,  my favorite religious holiday of the year. What better time to start something new? So, as with Mardi Gras, let the good times roll!