I’ve been blogging for more than ten years.

Initially, it consisted of putting up some HTML pages when I was on a trip or when I did something particularly noteworthy, such as my first flight with a passenger as a licensed pilot.  Eventually, I found a piece of software called Pivot, which made it easier to blog, but I found it a bit cumbersome to customize.  One thing that set Pivot aside from other blog systems is that it did not rely on a database behind the scenes, meaning it was fairly straight-forward to set it up.  Instead, it generated HTML files for each entry.  But I couldn’t do everything I wanted to with it and updating the look-and-feel was becoming increasingly frustrating.

So, I looked at other blog systems out there and eventually settled on WordPress.  A slick, database-driven system, it had lots of bells and whistles and it was just easier.  My frustration level went down significantly.

Since then, WordPress has become very popular and is used by some of the largest blogs on the Internet.  The user community is very active and they hold events called WordCamps, one- or two-day events with various speakers and networking activities.  I noticed that there’s going to be one held the first weekend of October in Toronto, so I signed up.  It’s only $25 and for that I get lunch both days and a t-shirt, too.  Hopefully, my schedule won’t change between now and then. 🙂

Pennsylvania is coal country. There are numerous coal mines there, both of the deep shafts in the ground type and the huge pits on the surface type. Needless to say, mines of any type are dangerous places and you can easily get yourself killed by falling into one if you’re trespassing on mine property at 1am.

Apparently Nathan Bowman didn’t learn this lesson.

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