My 250th post celebration

I know most people will celebrate an even hundred number post, I wanted to be different. (In other words I totally missed it).


I've been thinking about what I want to talk about in this special post. I didn't want to waste it on something inconsequential. You know, since all my other posts are so deep and meaningful. I figured the best thing to do was talk about how I started here and thank some people I've met through here.


It started right around the end of last year. Jenn said she was thinking about starting a blog about her quest to run the marathon this year after the mess that was Chicago Marathon '07. Now, I had been thinking about it for a while before that, but I was a little apprehensive. I don't know why, but I've always felt weird having people read what I write. I've been that way since high school when we'd have to read book reports to the class. Ugh. Is there a worse audience than high school kids who don't want to be there? No, I think not.


Before I started my own I had been reading others. I'm not sure which one was first, but I'm pretty sure it was Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy. I think I found his reviews of science fiction movies on a search once, and I just kept reading.


Dave Barry's blog was next, I've been a fan of his a long time, I don't know why it took me so long to find his website. I think having dial-up was part of that. I didn't spend a lot of time online; those 500 free hours from AOL didn't last forever you know.


Then one day I stumbled upon the online version of John Scalzi's book, Agent to the Stars, and became hooked on his blog, Whatever. His blog lead me to a few others; Pamie.com being one of my favorites.


This was all about two or three before I started my own blog here. At first I had no clue what I was doing. I just wrote about random stuff, not that much different than now, but I never went to many other people's blogs and commented on them. That was until John Scalzi posted that he was handing the reins of the Weekend Assignments over to Karen Funk Blocher at Outpost Mavarin.


I thought that was a perfect thing to get into, so I went to Karen's site and posted my first assignment and actually commented on other people's blogs. I know, I was out of control! From those weekend assignment posts I met nice people like, Florinda, Carly, Unfocused Me, Sarah, Kiva, and others I may be missing. If I am, I'm sorry.


I now participate on a semi-regular basis to Ten on Tuesday as well. Something I've found by reading Florinda's blog, she always has a lot of good links. It seemed like fun, and it is.


I got over my comment shyness from those activities, now if I find someone's post, or site, to be fun, I let them know. They may never respond, but that is okay. Take author and puppeteer Mary Robinette Kowal. I found her site through Scalzi and I go there and comment regularly. So far she hasn't told me to stop. It's probably because I am so witty and clever. (yeah, that's it.)


Some people have come to my site and commented on mine, too. Like DC, of Green Apples and Kool Aid. I now regularly visit her site since she stumbled upon mine.

I've branched out to other things a little as well. I have a Flickr page, and I've been playing around on Twitter (still not sure about that one). Feel free to come by and say hi there. Mostly so I don't feel like a stalker following other people around.

So, I guess I want to say thanks for making this fun. Thanks for coming by, whether you comment or not.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled blogging.