A Blogger is Born

Today is the first day of the rest of my life…my blogging life that is =). As a liberal arts major, from a long line of English teachers and college professors, I have an innate and insatiable desire to express myself. During my nearly 20 years of working a “real job” in the high tech industry (which has resulted in me owning a high tech consultancy) I have struggled to keep my inner feelings, thoughts, and anxieties tucked away neatly beneath the pressures of a 50+ person payroll, a mortgage, a wife, two kids, a dog, and a 2 hour commute. Those days are over. Although I'm keeping all of the aforementioned facets of my life in tact, this blog will serve as a new forum…my new mouth piece…and another way to avoid conference calls, meetings, and visits to the gym. My apologies in advance for the wacky ramblings that will soon pollute this otherwise tidy and unused cordon of cyberspace….And so here goes...

So THIS is a blog huh? The term “blog”, as I understand it, was created by combining the two words: web and log into a single word. Nifty. I’m no semanticist (I assume semanticist is a word because my spell check didn’t put a squiggly line under it), but I’m fairly certain that the reason we combine words like this is to make them faster to say and easier to roll off the tongue. Contractions such as wouldn’t (would not), couldn’t (could not), and D’Angelo (??) play a big role in our language. Okay, I’m just kidding about the D’Angelo thing. However, it does annoy me when people have names with symbols that fall outside the jurisdiction of the alphabet. Granted, some of the 26 letters we have are kind of lame - like "X" for example. Let's face it, that letter had such low usage they needed to invent Algebra just to give it a valid purpose! But regardless, do these folks really need an apostrophe to their name!? Think about it. I’m no mathemeticianologist, but according to my calculations, based on the number of perfectly good consonants and vowels we have available to us, there are approximately……. eleventeen brazillion potential combinations – not including Smith, Jones and Chin – an excellent law firm by the way (BTW). So with all these options, it seems a bit bombastic and unnecessary to toss an apostrophe into your own name. Perhaps, after decades of ridicule for having the name “Dangelo” (presumably pronounced: Dan-Jello?), someone finally took matters into his own hands to spare future generations the same fate. I suppose I can’t (can not) blame him. And I do soooo love their food…the #9 pockets are awesome, with a bag of chips and a pink lemonade.

Anyway, I’m not complaining…just making an observation. My theory is that there should be a compelling public benefit to combining words before official approval is granted. Isn’t someone watching this stuff? Can there truly be enhanced efficiency in saying “Blog” when no one ever used the term Web Log in the first place? Was anyone ever overheard saying, “Hey Jim, check out my new Web Log man, it’s neato!” Call me old fashioned but I think society needs to experience the inconvenience of saying the two words separately for at least a few decades before lurching straight into this blatant use of wordcombininationistics. (Okay, spell check missed that one too so I need to either reconsider my use of semanticist or call tech support… again! Argh!!!). Do real writers run into these issues or is it just bloggers like myself? WTF? Actually… “WTF” is a textbook example of what I would consider a perfectly legitimate use of word-efficiency. After all, this time-tested exclamation has been exploited for centuries prior to it’s recent induction into the Acronym Hall of Fame (AHF).

I believe it was King George in the late 1700's who said it best.

“I sent you pinheads over there to keep those rabble rousing Yankees under control and you end up creating the foundation for the world’s first super power? What the f@#%??!!!”

Well – that’s all I have in the gun today. For your information (FYI) I plan to expound on more scintillating topics in the future. After all, one of the many reasons I am starting this blog is to openly discuss the larger topics of life that continually nag at me, namely: "why I am here" and "what's it all about?" But today, I will resist the temptation to go stampeeding into that untamed wilderness. The meaning of life will have to wait for another day. And after we beat that topic to death, we can get into the good stuff, like the psychological benefits of Oreos, the mysterious male impulse to play air guitar, and of course, how to solve world peace through Wiffle Ball. Until next time, blog entry #1 is officially in the books.