There are several reasons that I decided to start a blog, which I figured would be the perfect subject of discussion for my first blog post.   Hopefully the number of mis-spelled words do not completely throw you off…but I am going to give it a shot.

So why blog, you may be asking.

To learn something new

This sounds a bit like a chiche, but really it is not.  I have worked at Platformic for almost 5 years now.  I enjoy it, it is a good product.  But, in order for me to really do my job well, as well as position myself for life down the road, I need to understand what else is out there, in terms of building a website.    I figured I would start with wordpress, get under the hood of  it for a little while, then move on.   I am sure at some point down the line I will post about my experience building this site, for now I will say there are several things that I think are really, really well done.  And there are a few things that are more difficult than I would have expected.

Also, just as a word of caution, I plan on continuing to tinker with this site, making adjustments.  Not that I am expecting a flood of traffic at any point int he near future, however, if for some reason it is completely jacked up when you try to read…chances are that i messing with it.

It seems to be the “thing” to do in this profession

Recently, I have really started to take a deeper dive into what other web professionals in the space do.   Of course I need to keep up on trends in terms of emerging sites and technologies.  But, in terms of “blogging”, which in itself is a quite overused phrase, most people in my field have one.   For some people, it is simply a portfolio site.  For others, it’s is an informational blog targeted to like minded people in the industry.  For me, I think it will eventually become all of the above.  But for now, it will just be me writing about what is on my mind.   Which leads me to the 3rd reason I decided to start blogging

To allow myself an outlet

As I said above, I have not imposed any type of topic or directional limitations on this blog.  It is going to be about what is on my mind.  Sometimes it might be a cool site or tech info.   Sometimes it might be about Star Wars.   And other times it will just be a random sampling of  my thoughts.

I currently work from home.  It has some huge advantages, as well as some disadvantages.   I would one of the two major disadvantages is the fact that there can be entire days where I don’t actually speak with anyone during work time.  I skype chat, email, etc, sure.  But actually verbally communicating with people…sometimes that is few and far between.   That can be difficult, extremely difficult.  Now, there are also many days that I would give my left pinkie toe for 10 minutes off the phone, so don’t cry for me argentina.   But the point is that I don’t really have that “watercooler” to gather around, and spend 10-15 mindless minutes talking about the game last night, newest superhero movie, etc, etc.    I figure the next best thing is to just put it on a blog.

From time to time, I am sure that I will post about frustrations I may have with my work.  My wife is an absolute saint.   I cannot tell you the number of times that I have bent her ears for 20 minutes about this issue or that issue, and she just listens intently.   Now, I know by the slight gloss that envelopes her eyes that she might not have much of a clue what I am talking about (but she actually is a pretty geeky smart chick), but she will listen nonetheless.  And for that, I love her.  But I think that at some point her dork tolerante will actually burst, so will use this medium as a way to vent.

Anyway…that’s it…the maiden voyage of Purple Flying Monkies.   More to come.

E