On January 7th, 2012, this blog turned 9 years old.  I thought I would do a little retro round up for the next little while to go back and bring forward some of the older content just for fun.

In the beginning the blog was on Blogger.com, mainly because I had no inclination to learn real HTML at the time, and the family website was too hard to update by hand.  A peek at what the blog looked like back then can be found on the Internet Wayback Machine here.

There is a real conversation in the first 6 or 8 months or so between some folks here, not necessarily staying true to the intent of a web log, but it was fun.  If you go back that far now, due to the platform switch from Blogger to Movable Type, (which was the thing to do among discerning geeks at the time), most of the posts look like they were written by me.  It’s very confusing actually, so don’t go back that far.  Instead look here for some of the more memorable posts of the first year:

Duck Meets Rink

Just realized that Ali ran a 50-min 10K back in 2003 with 15% body fat!  Holy crap.  Well done, I realize now that’s a very decent time, and way faster than I am at the moment.

Nikki responds to my trash-talk about being able to drink more than her.

Quinn has toe surgery (the first time)

One of the first news-related snarky posts by me in something like the tone that would soon become commonplace on the blog.

The basement reno is pretty well documented, at least in text.  The inspection post is the most amusing one of the bunch.

Herring farts.  Yes, a whole post about that.

One of many funny rants from Ali, who was a regular poster back in the day!

Nikki’s (and the blog’s) last post of the year.

So there you go, a year’s worth of retrospective.  That was fun, going back through the old stuff, and I might even do a summary for 2004.  That’s what has-beens do, they release a greatest hits album to generate interest again.  I got eight more years to go through, let’s see if we all can make it through eight more posts like this one.

Anyway, without getting too maudlin (I am turning 40 this year and I would rather NOT dwell on that, thank you) reading stuff from 9 years ago makes me realize how really lucky I am.  The friends and family I have are second to none.  You guys are amazing, amazing folks.  Nikki, you are my absolute best friend, and this little tour through memory lane makes me realize for the nine-hundredth time that you are the MOST important thing in my life.  Lord knows I have messed some things up (we will no doubt get to those blog posts later on), but marrying my best friend was the best decision I have ever made.  Wow.

So, with that, I will get back to work and still be thinking of you all.