10 Years of Journaling/Blogging/Whatever-ing

Where/who were you 10 years ago? I was a freshman starting his second semester in college at PLU. I just about got back together with my high school girlfriend (hope all is well with you, your husband and beautiful baby, Melissa!), wanted to be an astronaut, and was working on three websites. How do I remember all this? Well, 10 years ago today, I started blogging.

The word "blog" didn't exist in 1998 so I simply called my writing a "journal". Which it was. My idea was to jot down some thoughts and experiences now and then to share with family back home and friends. I also wanted to record pieces of my life so I wouldn't forget where I came from and who I was. It's the same reason I've racked up over 100,000 digital photos since that same year. I don't have the kind of mind that stores sharp details for years and years from which I could write a detailed auto-biography about what I had for breakfast when I was 15. My journal, however, can tell me stuff like that. We all have a history and, though it doesn't go back to infancy, I'm proud that I can thumb through those years whenever I want and friends and even strangers are welcome to do the same.

This website (along with my life) has evolved into something more. A couple years ago we bought a house and I changed jobs. Living and working in Tacoma together urged my writing in the direction of community advocate and participant. Though I may not muse about my thoughts day in and out my life is here now and writing about Tacoma also means sharing my experiences from here. This is very much still a personal blog though taking on policies and other issues can make it seem otherwise.

My goal going forward with blogging is to divide things up a bit. With the success (and decidedly better blogging tools) of FeedTacoma I'll focus more of my hyper-local, community-related posts at my blog there. KevinFreitas.net will continue to be more on the personal side of things but the Tacoma-centric crossover will continue along with posting my photography. I also hope to do more tech and web development industry blogging. Posts over at our SiteCrafting blog afford me that opportunity and I own a fun domain name that perhaps someday I'll put to this use.

So here I am 10 years of writing later. I'm a graduate of PLU, married to my amazing wife Sarah for over 3 years (been together 9+), still trying to figure out how to be an astronaut, and am a senior web developer for a growing company in downtown Tacoma with a couple hundred websites under my belt -- among other achievements. Will blogging be blogging in another 10? I have no idea. You can bet, however, that I'll still be writing and snapping photos to share so I can remember and be thankful for the life I've had.

Cheers!   ~ Kevin

P.S. - Where's 2003 you may ask? Well, a couple years ago I had a pretty stunning failure of the server that ran this website. Those entries and some from 2004 weren't backed up. I still have the hard drive that failed and, at some point, will recover the contents to re-post.

Comments (7) | To Top

2/12/2008 @ 8:18am

Ten years ago I was going into the second half of 8th grade, just starting with my first ever music group, a trio of me, my dad and my brother (despite recent performances, I really have strayed quite a bit stylistically from those days). So in a few months (June, I think) will be the 10th anniversary of my first live performance of music outside of school band.

I think I smell a parallel blog entry coming on: 10 Years of Rocking/Folking/Who-the-hell-knows-what...

by Joe Izenman

2/12/2008 @ 9:05am

10 years ago I was halfway through my first year of law school. Processing SSI claims for homeless people, floundering academically, in the health center at least once a week with hives and insisting that I was not stressed out, at all.

by Jenyum

2/12/2008 @ 9:53am

Ten years ago, I was in 10th grade and a band geek at Puyallup High School. Since I was officially 25 1/2 a few days ago, that means that 10 years ago I had just gotten my permit and was learning how to drive an '84 Ford Escort (which was a stick shift).

by Mandi

2/12/2008 @ 11:00am

Ten years ago today I'd been engaged for about three weeks, was living in an apartment at 150th & Pacific, I believe I was unemployed at that moment, and my main computer was an Apple //gs (yes, I was able to do Internet email and Usenet through ProStar and Knight Line BBSs... text-interface browsing with Lynx, once in a while when necessary). Things have improved. :)

by TheDamnMushroom

2/12/2008 @ 2:55pm

10 years ago i was in 4th grade learning about the solar system.... is it weird that i remember that?

by Roxanne

2/13/2008 @ 1:42pm

I had just made my first real website... Maybe I'll parallel the post, too.

by Dave

2/14/2008 @ 7:48pm

10 years ago I was... about three years into my relationship with The Man, we might have been working up our second trip through the E9 Beer Club, my weight might have been on its upward trajectory... We were about 5 months from buying this house, living in a house on 12th and Monroe and hitting up Franks every now and again for shakes... the Mandolin was an auto parts shop... we had two greyhounds, I was working in Kitchen Planning at IKEA, commuting to Renton and standing up for my fine city daily to Kent-ites... My computing was limited to CAD and occasional emails...

fun stuff, reminiscing!

And Happy blog-Decade!!

by jcbetty