Not sure what reminded me, but today is this blog’s 23rd birthday.
It’s kind of amazing how life evolves – too slowly to perceive, yet startling, even overwhelming over time.
On February 5, 2002, I was a fairly newly-single parent, working at a company that was visibly circling the drain faster and faster every day. My kids were 10 and 9 years old. I wasn’t adrift, per se – “overwhelmed” is probably a better word.
I was reading Time magazine at my desk over lunch hour, and I tripped into an article about the new generation of conservative intellectuals, focusing on Andrew Sullivan, who was probably the first big-name “conservative” “celebrity” blogger. A sidebar explained what a “blog” was, and gave a URL to “Blogger.com”.
Which I followed, that night, after the kids went to bed. I started writing that night, and 23 years later, I haven’t stopped.
The first two years of Shot in the Dark are long lost. The next two are a little tenuous. But I’ve been writing on this platform, WordPress, since 2006. I need a big of a technical facelift – I’m praying for a two day blizzard that’d justify me spending that kind of non-work time at my desk.
My kids are now a tad older than I was when they were born. My career – which seemed fragile and tenuous 23 years ago – has worked out pretty well. Better than that company did, anyway. The blog morphed into the Northern Alliance of Blogs, where I met King, Ed, Chad, Brian, Atomizer, JB, John HInderaker and Scott Johnson and, eventually, the first real-life social circle I’d had in a long, long time.
Life moves slow – usually. Starting this blog 23 years ago today kicked off one of the bigger, better evolutions in mine. And for that – and all of you – I’m thankful.
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