Fireworks ! ?

Is it the 4th of July already? Nooo....of course not ! It's March 31st !

So why all the fireworks, you might be wondering.

Because it marks the First Anniversary of my blog. Yes--this very blog you're now reading, or at least I hope someone is. OK, so maybe it's not the most important event in the world, but it's important to me.

I only got online in January 2005 with the help of a friend who salvaged an old computer from his job (it was being thrown out) and later in April 2005 I found the computer I'm currently using sitting outside my old apartment on the curb (awaitng trash pickup). But last March I happened upon a blog written by Ryan that I found fascinating for it's honesty & openess in the way he talked about his life. Now you must know that I'm a very introverted person, and don't make friends very often or open up to people much at all. But Ryan had his IM name listed there and said he'd talk to anyone. So I added him to my IM list, never really expecting anything to come of it. But to my surprise, a few days later, a notice popped up that said he'd added me to his IM list as well.

Even more of a surprise came a few more days after that. I had just gotten home from work, sat down at the computer (still wearing my jacket) , and soon after it booted up, I received an instant message from, guess who--Ryan! You have no idea how shocked I was....I rarely talk to anyone outside of work or occasionally one of 2 friends I have who live nearby. Anyway we ended up chatting for about an hour and he encouraged me to start a blog. ( I had mentioned I was thinking about it).

Although actually I had already started one about a week before in which I planned to talk about items in the news or politics (I had named it "Random Rants" 'cause I couldn't think of a better title at the time), giving my opinions on those events. But after talking to Ryan, I decided to start a more personal blog. So he was the inspiration for this particular blog. And for that I have to say "Thank You, Ryan!"

Having been online for only about 2 months, Ryan's was the first blog I'd read. Oddly enough, the second one I started reading was Mike's old blog--one he had before his current one. Isn't it strange that out of all the blogs on the internet the first 2 I happened to read belonged to two great guys who are now blogging (amongst other things) together? I feel very privileged to have met both of them and hope their relationship is a long & happy one.

I also want to say that I've met many wonderful people through their blogs or their visits to mine. Thank you to all who stop by here and to read and comment. I truly do appreciate that anyone would take the time to visit my tiny little island here on the internet.

Well I've got a bit sidetracked here, but I wanted to tell how I began this silly blog of mine.

As you see, I also decided to go with a new style and have re-organized the site a bit. I put my blog and links lists in alphabetical order to make things easier to find. With one exception--Ryan & Mike's blog will always be on the top of my blog list!

I do have one problem. When I added the new template, I lost my Haloscan comments and haven't been able to figure out how to retrieve them. I still have the Haloscan code in the template, but the comments are gone. They are still stored at Haloscan's site in my account but I don't know why they're not showing up here. That's something I have to work out.

Also I wanted to put a photo in the top banner with the title and I'm working on that but right now it's getting late and I need to get some sleep.

One last thing--those fireworks are from last July 4th here in Albany--I took that video with my cheap little 1.5 megapixel digital camera. I can only get a very small amount of video on the camera's memory card, but it came out much better than I expected it to.

One more last thing--the title of this post above links to my first blog entry.

Just one more last thing--there's no sound on the video--'cause I haven't yet learned how to edit audio into a video. And this computer's been having problems latlely so I probaly couldn't do it even if I knew how.