16 Years of Blogging - A Web Publishing Anniversary

Today, February 16, 2020 marks my 16th year of blogging.  I started in 2004 with this post on February 16, 2004 that originally lived at JoinTomCross.com and then moved to RhodesSchool.com and finally moved over her to my name url.   Last year, I marked the occasion in similar fashion but because it was 15 years, it felt important. 

I haven't marked this anniversary every year on the blog, but have done it a few times.

2020 - 16 year Blogging Anniversary
2019 - 15 year Blogging Anniversary
2016 - 12 year Blogging Anniversary
2014 - 10 year Blogging Anniversary
2013 - 9 year Blogging Anniversary
2011 - 7 year Blogging Anniversary

This post marks the 3319th post on the blog.  That's 3319 days or more than 9 full years of posts. 

16 years means my blog is old enough to get it's license.  It means that I've been doing this for 39% of my life.  I've been a blogger longer than I've been a husband and father.  It is the same amount of time in my life that I was in 1st grade through college graduation.  8 years of elementary school.  4 years of high school.  4 years of college.  Thinking about it that way, it is kind of incredible. 

Looking back to that first post in 2004, things have changed for me personally, professionally and also on the Web.  I started publishing on the Web and fell in love.  Haven't looked back.  But, today, I'm publishing NOT for an external audience as much as I'm creating what I call my own diary.  Trying to mark things that are passing through our lives and experiences I'm having that I can look back on.  As you have likely noticed, I post quite a bit about my own garden diary.  In the December 31st recap post, I mentioned that more than 40% of the total publishing in 2019 was about my garden/yard.  That has been a lot of fun to monitor year over year and watch what has worked, what hasn't worked and see how things are growing. 

But, in addition to that idea of creating a diary (or garden diary), part of this is simply about flexing some writing and publishing muscles.  I like doing it.  I like putting my fingers to my keyboard for a moment every morning.  And while my body continues to atrophy as I age (gasp!  I'm 41 now), I know that I can keep fighting off writing/publishing atrophy by doing this everyday.  Even if nobody sees it. 

I've pulled back from Twitter.  Don't get me wrong, I'm reading Twitter A LOT.  Everyday.  A LOT.  But, I haven't posted in years.  In fact, I went in and deleted all of my old Tweets because I didn't think they were worth saving.  I don't post on Facebook.  Never caught on.  And I haven't posted on Instagram since June 24, 2017 - more than two years ago.  I've been keeping my own linkblog over at www.parrillo.info where I post links that are either taking up tabs in my browser and I want to get them later or pieces that I'd like to reference in the future. 

I suppose I've clung to publishing here because I like the control I have with my own domain.  I like the format of blogging in reverse chronology.  And, I suppose I like that there's no real "push" here in terms of distribution.  If someone wants to read my posts, they have to come "pull" the posts themselves.  That seems like it suits my personality just fine. 

I've now hit a blog post per day for the past five years and eight of the past eight of the past ten years.  Count me as someone who has bought into Seth Godin's SUSDAT. 

Welp, if you got to the bottom of this post, thanks for hanging in there.  Think I can get 15 more years on the Web?  At what point do I turn into a "get off my lawn" guy with my 25 year-old blog.  Maybe it'll just be 16 years.  Who knows?  But, I know this:  I am a blogger.