An anniversary of sorts

My first entry on this site is dated November 21, 2014. I do not count this as the true start of this site because I had no idea what I was doing or how to set things up. That was a practice post. I cobbled enough knowledge together to start posting a few days later. I count the first true post on this site to be November 25, 2014 and I have managed minimum of a post a day since then. My goal was to post original content and see if I could keep it up for a year. I managed to do it. The photos on this site are my own with the exception of a few images from Google Maps and a couple I used to illustrate the Airdrie hailstorm of August 7, 2014. Therefore I declare this day to be the one year anniversary of this site.

A few notes to note. Wirecutter got me started through reading his site.  I had the idea that if he can do this then I certainly can. No, that is not meant as a slight, it looked like he was having fun doing what he was doing. I had no vision of what I wanted to blog. I had emailed him months before I started blogging and he gave me a lot of good advice. I really appreciated the time he took to help me out with a few questions that I had about this whole blogging business. I still read his site but I have a minor criticism. I think his site is much better when he concentrates on original content like his stories and his history posts. I have sent him a few emails after I got started to thank him for everything and never heard back. No matter, I am still grateful though.

Angel at her site got me some initial exposure and some information as well as C.W. at his site. I correspond on a fairly frequent basis with the very nice and fun lady at coopfeathers.blogspot.ca. All of them have been very helpful. I must not forget Irish in this, he has indulged me a couple of times in the past. 

Some years ago I read an autobiography by Michael Caine called "What's It All About?". A very enjoyable read. At the end he had no idea. Neither do I. I started this blog as a way to store some photos and know when and where I was at a certain place. If someone read it I considered that a bonus. I got more out of this then I thought I would. I have not received any negative comments, I have got a couple of odd ones, some helpful ones, all have been great. I think I have managed to make a few contacts along the way and might be able to meet up with some people that I have met through this blog.

I was not sure if I was going to continue this after one year. The big reason that I started this site was due to a change in my situation. I was married for over twenty years, I was served early in 2014, and sometime in the future I will be divorced. The reasons do not matter and I doubt I will be posting anything about it here. A few years ago I had a job where under constant pressure from deadlines, the place was always understaffed, I frequently worked after hours and on weekends. I felt I was on automatic pilot, functioning and not living. Now I do something else that I actually enjoy. It took me some time to adjust, things are at a different pace. I do not wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat about something job related like I used to and I do not labour under constant stress. 

The benefit of age is that it allows you to examine things in a different light. A large number of relatives on my father's side of the family dropped dead in their fifties from various causes. A disturbing number died at age fifty-four. If this is to be my fate I determined that I was going to squeeze in some living in the meantime. I am probably in better health than most of them, I have never smoked and occasionally drink. I also like to get out and do something like explore. It is interesting how many people live somewhere and never go out to see the place where they live. So while going through an adjustment in my situation I picked up a motorcycle which became therapeutic in a way and the blog morphed into a hobby.

I was going to stop this cold turkey and move onto something else, perhaps start up an entirely different blog. Now I am unsure. I will likely keep this going. The frequency of posts may or may not lessen. It has been interesting enough and doing this has led to a few things and I will see how things progress.