Today, I noticed I did not have an official "Welcome" article. So I am going to rectify that now, by sharing the story of how I came to be a part of the JoeUser community, and my thoughts on my beginning.
Long ago, in a time when Stardock was a tiny Michigan based company - well, not that long ago. But it was a time for Iraq, and a time for indie development of computer games. For some reason, I knew who Brad Wardell was. Some project or another of his, around this time, made me want to find out more about this "Stardock" company, and why I had not heard of it. So I looked for it, and I stumbled upon JoeUser.
If I remember correctly, at this point, JoeUser.com was mostly a compilation of Brad Wardell's thoughts. Thoughts on the war in Iraq and why it was good that we were going, thoughts about independent game development, and other things that are not sticking at the moment. I did not know I could have my own blog - at that point, I might not have been able to. It was early, yet, in the development of this massive sphere of blogging community that I love.
So I read his articles, and they seemed well thought out, and not like anything I had heard before. See, in college, everyone was against Iraq. Mr. Wardell was the only dissenting opinion I had heard at the time, and so I was very convinced by him. I also wrote a paper for school based on his independent gaming articles, which I think I even sourced. I was bad at bibliographies.
So, I went away from JoeUser, and stayed away for a while. I forgot it existed, pretty much. I had other things to do - games to play, girls to chase, etc, wives to marry, etc. I eventually returned to JoeUser, just to check in with Mr. Wardell, who was my hero at the time. What did I find? PEOPLE! Tons and tons of people, clogging up everything. I just wanted to read what Mr. Wardell thought, not all these other guys! You all almost scared me away!
But I saw something that I had not seen before... in the upper right hand corner of the screen, there was a strange box. A box... that held the key to my own blog.
I didn't know much about blogging, but I knew this - if other people could post this drivel, I could too!
So I signed up. My account says it was February 2003, but I didn't post anything until February 2006. I don't know about the cross logins for Stardock forums (I was active on the GalCiv forum for a while), but February 2006 came, and it was time to take the plunge. My first article set the tone for my journey down the tubes - "Ethics and the accounting field." (Thanks for your continued support, Dr. Guy. You are the only comment on many of my articles!) What was I thinking?
My second article, Why Is Jesus So Important? gathered a better response, but I was heading down a road where I was posting what the community seemed to want instead of what I wanted to post, in order to become popular. While that's a fun road to be on, it usually has a giant cliff right before the end of it. So I tried many themes - accounting, games, lifeblog, etc.
Then, it hit me. Maybe I'm not really meant to have my own material very often.
Since then, I haven't worried so much about whether I have the greatest articles in the world. I like to read everyone else's blog, and comment. I know I have some really good comments, but starting from scratch is just not the way for me to get going. But I will continue to post articles, as they come to me. Sooner or later, I'll have a great idea, like this one, and I'll just go with it, and we'll have a wonderful time hanging out on my blog for a change. But until then, I'll see you at your place. You have a bigger TV.