My A to Z Challenge Theme this year is the ABC's of me. Each day in the month of April with the exception of Sundays I will be posting about one aspect of my life that begins with the letter of the day. Today's letter is B so let's get right to it shall we?
B is for Blogger
When I was your age, television was called books. William Goldman - The Princess Bride
When I was in my twenties, blogs were called newsletters. I wrote one, a semi-whenever publication called Those Living On The Cutting Edge printed on a dot matrix printer and mailed out when postage stamps cost 22 cents.
It was written to like minded friends and contained interviews, reviews, rants and even a feature called "If I Could Draw This Would Be A Cartoon, in which I described a scene and then said what the caption would be.
Another early pre-blog was when I would write prayer letters when I was a short term missionary in Russia. It's title was The Siberian Sentinel. Each month I would write a few snippets of what was going on and send it back home to be distributed.
One summer my brother visited me there and I tasked him to write that months letter. So, I guess he was the first guest blogger. I don't remember everything he wrote, but I remember when he said that he could make a lot of money by selling the Russians the recipe for ice.
Geo-Cities was a dream come true for me. It was my pre-blog blog. My family had multiple pages including my ultimate Comic Strip Page where I put my 30 favorite comic strips as if I published a newspaper. I had another page where I listed the last 5 sporting events we attended. At Geo Cities I also posted editorials/ essays some like
An Open Letter to the Car Behind Me eventually made their way to this blog.
An Open Letter to the Car Behinf Me
Dear Car Behind me 7:30 p.m September 1st 2001 exiting Elk Grove Bowl Parking lot onto Southbound Arlington Heights Road,
Yesterday as my wife, daughter and I were heading home from dinner at the Rose Garden restaurant in Elk Grove we were making a left out of the parking lot of The Grove Shopping Center on the corner of Arlington Heights Road and Higgins. We were joined by you on our tail. My wife, who is probably the worlds best and safest driver, was waiting for traffic on both sides to subside before making our turn.
This is when you, in your 2nd row mentality, decided that you could see the traffic better behind our minivan than we could ahead of you. So you blared on your horn, indicating that we really should be turning at that exact moment and make you wait no longer. Well, Superman, (A reference to your x-ray vision; being able to see past our car to the ongoing traffic) not 3 seconds after you honked, a northbound car barreled past us.
This means that if we took your horn blowing advice, and stuck our cars nose out in traffic, that most likely my wife, myself, and my daughter and our unborn child would be dead right now. My daughter would not have turned two today. The house in Carpentersville we moved into yesterday would have never been lived in by us, nor paid off by us, saddling our parents with grief and debt.
Fortunately, as disconcerting as your second row salute was, my wife did not go until the coast was actually clear. You, then had the audacity to catch up with us and give my wife a glare! Don't you realize, that if we did take your advice and got smashed up, you would have most likely been even further delayed than you were. When we both stopped at the light at Landmeier it was all I could do to not roll my window down and give you an earful.
This has happened to me so many times before. We live in an area of congested traffic, driving in front of people who honk the horn at us before the light turns green. If you guys are so quick on the draw, how come you generally are behind me ?
So car behind me, next time you are second in line behind somebody else: try to remember that it's not just a car you are behind, it is people!
Love,
Dave
At some point I started reading blogs, at first I didn't know they were blog. One time I was reading an excellent review of a movie I never heard of called
Once, . I got the movie from our library and it is now one of my top 100 films of all time. My wife and I have also seen the musical version of the film. That blog was one of the first blogs I put on my first blog roll. Because of that blog and many others over the years, I have read things, experiences things, and even written things like a progressive poem that I wouldn't have without blogging. My wife's siblings and other relatives started a family blog in 2006 or so, A lot of seminal pictures of our growing family made their way to that blog.
This blog was originally started in 2009 with the title Home School Dad. To many the moniker Home School Dad connotates a Dad whose family home schools. The picture you get in your mind is of a Dad who works outside the home with a wife who teaches the children. In that scenario I was a Home School Dad since 2002 or so when my wife started doing school at the kitchen table with our 3 year old daughter as our 1 year old son toddled by.
What I meant by Home School Dad was a Dad who was the stay at home primary educator of the children. Starting in the Fall of 2008, I was that Dad. After an introductory semester of teaching the kids, taking them to the library, and putting my toe in the water of Home School co-operatives, I was ready to dive in to full home schooling mode. At that time this usually included, a home school blog. So I made the transition from blog reader to blog doer and became Home School Dad. I participated in lots of blog hops, carnivals, and memes
(which I pronounced as me mes) . I built a pretty good following in the home schooling community.
The mid to late 2000's are generally considered the height of blogging. I think the late 2000's early 2010's were the height of home school blogging. By 2010 I had 3 active blogs. Home School Dad started in January 2009, Crazy Uncle Dave's Sports Page began in December of that year. These were both on blogger. I started a vlog called Dave Out Loud on Word Press and like Arthur Dent, who could never get the Hang of Thursdays, I could never get the hang of Word Press. So in January 2012, I brought Dave Out Loud to Word Press. 2012 was also the first year I participated in the A to Z challenge at HSD.
I was the main home educator in our family for 5 school years between 2008 and 2013. When I went back to working full time, I was still able to teach once a week at our home school co-op. I also was able to continue to blog. In 2015 I came back to the A to Z challenge at this blog and also on my sports blog. In 2016 I actually did the challenge on 3 different blogs. That was the only year I didn't complete the challenge.
2017 and 2018 were dry years for me as far as blogging we concerned. I participated in the 2019 A to Z challenge on a Word Press blog, dropped out for about a year and then resurfaced again in 2020 during Co-vid. I have been back ever since. From 2019 until now I have participated in the A to Z challenge each year. In that time, I have consolidated my 3 blogs into one and changed the name of Home School Dad to Leap of Dave.
I still read quite a few blogs and use my blog rolls to keep up with them, I know this is a bit of a rambling history of my life in the blogoverse. There are probably more things I could have said and some things I could have left out. There used to be a Weekly Blog Meme called Works for Me Wednesday at the blog We Are That Family. It was one of those mr. linky blogs and the basic idea is you would give some sort of tip that was helping you and your family. What I'm trying to say amid the rambling, is that blogging works for me.
A to Z challenge wise, you can get back to the blog by clicking
here and get to the spreadsheet by standing up, spinning around 3 times while chanting spreadsheet. I'll wait. Actually, it's April Fool's day as I'm writing this, so that may not work, but still try it. Clicking
here won't be as entertaining to those around you as my method, but it will get you to the spreadsheet.
Coming Up: C is for Christian.
