Ten years ago I created a monster.
It was two weeks before my senior year of high school. I drove my dad's white pickup truck. Verizon Wireless had just released the LG Chocolate, a cutting-edge phone that could play MP3s. Gamers eagerly awaited the revolutionary Nintendo Wii. And MSN Messenger was the place to hang out when you couldn't hang out.
Back then, in the days before Facebook, blogging was the medium of choice for many who wanted to share their lives with the world. A bunch of kids I went to school with had blogs. Folks I'd met on message boards had blogs. Everybody had a blog.
Everyone except me.
But I didn't really want a blog. What would I even write about? The Lego blogosphere was already saturated, and I didn't have the kinds of interesting ideas friends like Chris Thatcher constantly thought up.
If I started a blog, it probably wouldn't last a week.
Ha.
I tried to resist, but eventually the sense of community and exchange of ideas drew me in. Ten years ago this week, I wrote my first blog post:
Well, I finally caved... I got my own blog. I never thought I'd do it, but here I am. Senior year is starting soon, and I want to remember everything about it... well, almost everything. That's the biggest reason behind this blog. Based on a True Story really is based on the true story of an average guy--me--trying to survive in this world. It'll make you laugh, it'll make you cry, and some parts will make you vote Republican. In any case, I sincerely hope you enjoy reading my thoughts as I put them here, and that you check back often. Feel free to comment on anything and everything I say using the comment option at the bottom of each post; I do care what you think, after all, and it'd be pretty cool for yourself to make your voice heard.
Welcome to my blog!
~Nathan Cunningham--The Great Sly Pig
Oh, and anyone who lives in my area and has a blog, or anyone in general with a Lego blog, please let me know so we can put each other in our links.
I posted three times that first day.
Six hundred times in two years.
The Internet wasn't ready. I became a blogging machine.
My blog got so big so fast I had to close it to the public after I left home to serve an LDS mission. Even though I made no posts there as a missionary, I found myself using too much of my weekly hour of computer time managing new comments from Google-borne strangers. I was distracted. The commenters were often nosy or creepy or contentious. It was just a mess.
But I still treasure that blog nearly a decade later. Out of all my blogs--and I've had a lot--that one's my favorite. I learned a lot about myself and my ideas through that blog. I met some of my dearest friends through that blog. And it's the most detailed, consistent journal I've ever had.
Those memories are such precious things.
I've changed a lot since I wrote on that old blog. I've achieved so many of the things I used to dream about there: a college education, a family, a career I love (even if I am just starting). Young Nathan would be proud.
But if I have just one regret about my life since then, it would be not writing things down. Hardly any journal entries exist from my courtship with my wife, our marriage, or any of our children's lives.
Young Nathan would be devastated. And maybe someday old Nathan will be, too.
I have a lot to learn from the obsessive record keeper I used to be. And I'm sure my adolescent self can teach me even more than how to write a journal.
So I'm doing something fun for myself and reading through my old blog posts, ten years after they were written. I'm following them the way my readers did, one day at a time, as if it were all happening again.
Of course there's the high school writing to deal with, and I shake my head at some of my ideas. But more than anything, I've truly enjoyed the time I've spent so far getting to know myself again. I look forward to what's to come.
At the very least, I have an all-access pass into a teenage brain should I ever want to write a YA novel.
At best, though, I hope to rediscover some good habits I may have lost over the past few years. I also hope to find some memories I can share with friends to reconnect with them.
And, hopefully, I may figure out how my younger self found so much dang time to write.
Six hundred times in two years.
The Internet wasn't ready. I became a blogging machine.
My blog got so big so fast I had to close it to the public after I left home to serve an LDS mission. Even though I made no posts there as a missionary, I found myself using too much of my weekly hour of computer time managing new comments from Google-borne strangers. I was distracted. The commenters were often nosy or creepy or contentious. It was just a mess.
But I still treasure that blog nearly a decade later. Out of all my blogs--and I've had a lot--that one's my favorite. I learned a lot about myself and my ideas through that blog. I met some of my dearest friends through that blog. And it's the most detailed, consistent journal I've ever had.
Those memories are such precious things.
 |
| Image credit: Your Dictionary |
I've changed a lot since I wrote on that old blog. I've achieved so many of the things I used to dream about there: a college education, a family, a career I love (even if I am just starting). Young Nathan would be proud.
But if I have just one regret about my life since then, it would be not writing things down. Hardly any journal entries exist from my courtship with my wife, our marriage, or any of our children's lives.
Young Nathan would be devastated. And maybe someday old Nathan will be, too.
I have a lot to learn from the obsessive record keeper I used to be. And I'm sure my adolescent self can teach me even more than how to write a journal.
So I'm doing something fun for myself and reading through my old blog posts, ten years after they were written. I'm following them the way my readers did, one day at a time, as if it were all happening again.
Of course there's the high school writing to deal with, and I shake my head at some of my ideas. But more than anything, I've truly enjoyed the time I've spent so far getting to know myself again. I look forward to what's to come.
 |
| Image credit: Chris Graham |
At the very least, I have an all-access pass into a teenage brain should I ever want to write a YA novel.
At best, though, I hope to rediscover some good habits I may have lost over the past few years. I also hope to find some memories I can share with friends to reconnect with them.
And, hopefully, I may figure out how my younger self found so much dang time to write.
Oh, the good old blogging days! I loved your blog. Still do! Sometimes I really miss our old blogosphere, but geez, we really must have had a ton of spare time to write as much as we did back then.
ReplyDeleteThanks! It's good to see you here. :) I miss our old blogosphere a lot. Reading my old blog posts has been a nice nostalgia rush, but it does make me a little sad sometimes. But I'm so glad you're still blogging!
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