JoeSchmidt.com: The Beginning

The Beginning

Posted on January 28, 2005 at 04:33 AM

First, let me start out by saying that I'm not real big into New Year's resolutions. They may be great for some people, not me. If you need to lose weight, quit smoking, save money, kick the booze, or get a new job then great, start tomorrow. Just don't put it off until next January 1st. But for me this year was different. My resolution was to start a blog by my 30th birthday, which happens to be today. Now, I know what you're saying, "Wow, some New Year's resolution, start a blog. Great." It has been an interest of mine for some time now. I have had my domain name for almost a year now, but I never had anything of interest to put on it. (Some of you may be thinking that I STILL don't have anything of interest to post) Hey, some people build those tiny ships in a bottle, collect stamps, or construct gigantic balls of paint. I'm starting a blog.

And so it begins.

I first heard about blogs back in 2001. I was driving home from Des Moines one night listening to some show on NPR (Marketplace, All things Considered, I can't remember.) The host was interviewing Wil Wheaton and talking about his blog. (Name doesn't ring a bell? I'll give you some clues: Stand by Me, Star Trek The Next Generations's Wesley Crusher? There you go sparky, now you got it.) So I checked out his site, wilwheaton.net (or WWdN for those in the know). Cool, it's a guy who happens to be famous talking about his life, what he believes in, and things he's experienced. And people could interact with him by leaving comments in reference to his posts. I didn't get it.

Fast forward to 2003.

Blogs are becoming more popular. They quickly generating buzz around the internet. I find a few sites, read their posts, but still not really getting it.

Move ahead to May 2004.

My co-worker David Kadavy starts his blog. A side from being a talented, award winning graphic designer at RDG, we share a lot of the same interests. His blog talks about his life, graphic design, web design, technology, affluenza, etc... But after reading his blog and a few others for a couple of weeks, I slowly begin to get it. What is "IT" you ask? Let me explain.

Blogs are about communication, pure and simple. For some it can be therapeutic, a way to vent. For others, blogs are like a semi-private diary you share with the world. For me it's about transferring knowledge. I am not the smartest person in the world, nor have I experienced everything that life has to offer. But what I do have is my experiences and the knowledge I have gained from them. So by "blogging" about what we know maybe we can learn something from each other, and in the process gain some insight as to what it's like to be in someone else's shoes.

So that's it, nothing special. My first post is complete. I'm not sure what direction this blog will take. I work with technology so I'm sure there will be a few posts about that and other quirky things that pop-up here and there.

Let me apologize right now, I will ramble, (as this posts has already proven) but I will try to keep the length of my posts to a minimum, for both our sakes. Keeping it above the digital fold as they say(i.e. from having to scroll down past the bottom edge of the screen).

Please forgive the state of my web layout. I will be updating it over the next few weeks as time permits. Right now simple works for me.

One more thing, I would be remiss in not wishing my wife a happy birthday. Happy 31 my love. And also happy birthday to our niece who is 7 today. Three birthdays on the same day can be pretty hectic, but I have found that it is not wise to try to compete with a cute seven year old. They always win.

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