It’s hard to believe sometimes that I’ve been doing this as long as I have. Really, I’ve been blogging for longer than 14 years, but this inception of the blog was created on January 9th, 2005. I had been silent on the blogging front for a few years due to a lack of a computer in my early 20’s, but after getting one in late 2004 I managed to get back online and have kept a presence ever since. I’m a couple of days late on this anniversary post — for whatever reason it slipped my mind until today, and I feel obligated to put something out celebrating the occasion.

Long time readers will know I’ve been around some time, but there are only so many of us left from those days. A small handful of the blogs on my side bar have been doing this as long as I have with any sort of regularity. I call these folks members of the old guard, and to some extent, they are the last of a dying breed. I’m glad to see that there are others who have taken up the blogging mantle in more recent years and have kept up at it, but am equally saddened by those who got off to a good start but let their blogs stagnate and die. With so many other mediums taking away from the written word, I feel like it is our duty to keep writing alive.

This is why I appreciate events like the Newbie Blogger Initiative, Blaugust, and even things like NaNoWriMo. We shouldn’t let the written word die off as a source of entertainment, yet I am just as guilty of not reading books as much as I should. I do frequent the blogs on my side bar though, along with keeping up a respectable output of my own writing. Things have been good on the blogging front for a few years now for me, where I’ve not kept a schedule but have managed a decent amount of posts each month. I don’t always get the interaction that I want, but when I do it reminds me why I do this in the first place.

I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again:

Despite all the times I’ve said I only write for myself, I really do this for you. So thank you, dear reader. I hope you have enjoyed your stay in my little corner of the Internet.

Stay a while, and listen.