As near as I can figure out, I’ve been blogging a little over 15 years. The first post that I can find, for sure, is dated March 27, 2004 and deals with computer problems and reformatting a hard drive.
My first blogging efforts were on Blogger, but in October 2004, I left and began using WordPress to manage my blogs. “It’s not that I have anything against blogger overall,” I wrote. “I just wanted the blogs on my own server. Simple as that.”
At the time, I had established 4 blogs:
- North Farnham Freeholder—my personal blog—”a little bit of this and a little bit of that— including some vintage photography and other images, quality on-line sites that I’ve found over the years and more.” It morphed into Exit78, which now has 2,827 posts. That’s an average of about 13.6 post a month. It also has 45 pages published. (Facebook)
- Out ‘n About—outdoors related postings. It became Haw Creek Outdoors and is now just Haw Creek. It has 1,653 posts and 52 pages published. Sadly, some of the pages need some serious updating. (Facebook)
- Chronicles of the American Civil War started out publishing public domain material from the corresponding day of a year during the civil war.
- It became Daily Observations of the Civil War (DOTCW), with multiple daily posts during the civil war sesquicentennial from before, during, and after the war. It has 17,536 posts and 15 pages.
- American Civil War Chronicles (ACWC) used the DOTCW database, adding to it, for the “sesquicentennial plus five years.” It is now going through the civil war again with the previous posts rescheduled for 160 years following the applicable diary or journal entry, news article, images and more. By April 2025, 160 years after the end of the war, ACWC will probably have published over 25,000 posts. Currently, in the blog, it is just after the First Battle of Bull Run [Manassas]. [Facebook: American Civil War Chronicles and American Civil War]
- A Selection of Poetry – The Blog—I had created a website called A Selection of Poetry beginning in 2002 that garnered quite a bit of traffic. I was publishing material from that site in the blog and, for some reason, that stopped in 2007. I actually restarted that blog in 2019, but the restart only has 9 posts.
Over time, I’ve tried different strategies for blogging, mostly around sharing photos, both mine and public domain or creative commons images I’ve found online. I’ve tried blogging themes like 1000 words (posting images worth 1000 words), travel photos, Art on Sunday and Eyes of the Great Depression. I’ll still do some of that but, for now, I’m just writing and blogging on topics as they occur to me. I’ve done several recently on COVID and vaccination. I imagine I’ll do more. A local casino issue will probably garner more posts as things move along [that topic typically get a lot of visits as I share those posts on a local Facebook group that is intensely interested in getting the casino approved and built].
I’ve interacted with a number of other bloggers over the years. In 2004, I saved a link list of 14 blogs. None of the blogs’ links are currently active in their original incarnation. Several still exist but, except for one who last posted in March 2019, their most recent post was in 2011 or earlier. Others return 404, 503 or Server Not Found errors, have their URL for sale, or have a URL that has been taken over by someone else.
Though some may think so, blogging isn’t dead. Some of the bloggers I interacted with or followed over the years are still blogging. Some are now long-time Facebook friends, including a few that haven’t blogged in quite some time.
My wife is one of the most prolific bloggers I know. Karen blogs nearly every day at Quilts…etc.. Her focus is primarily on her quilting but she includes many other things in her daily chatty post. Having started in 2007, she has averaged just under 29 posts per month and has had 57,202 comments an average of about 11.5 comments per post.
To blog or not to blog? The answer to that is I think I’ll stick with it at least a while longer.
