At this moment, someone might be staring at my blog

For my regular readers, and by that I don’t mean those of you who regularly have a BM at this time of the morning, you know it’s Flashback Sunday! For those of you who aren’t regular, you are probably irritable. Reading this blog may help. Sundays is when we go back into the archives and pull out some of the earliest posts, back when I thought “Freshly Pressed” was some snooty wine enthusiast blog. Today’s entry was my very first post, which also ran as a newspaper column. The subtle innuendo raised a few eyebrows. It also got me a raise because circulation jumped. I’m not sure what that says about my readership, but…

Haha! Who are we kidding! We know exactly what it says! Which reminds me to say something else:

Thank You.

And Happy Flashback Sunday…

I’m about to do something a little risky — possibly even controversial — by explaining how you could be the first person, aside from my wife, to see my blog.

… On second thought, I suppose I should include that disoriented espresso drinker at the cyber-cafe who, after stumbling into my bathroom stall searching for a Wi-Fi signal, caught a glimpse of my blog when it was on my laptop.

But HEY — aside from them, you’ll be the first.

As you can probably tell, exposing my blog is something I’m not entirely comfortable with. However, considering how hard I worked to get my blog up in the first place, I’d like as many people to see it as possible because, as I’ve learned, they can go down without warning, usually right in the middle of something important.

And though I’m sure this goes without saying, I’d like to clarify that what we’re talking about is my new weblog.

Anyone under the age of 40 knows exactly what a weblog is. Which is why, as a 46-year-old man, I recently found myself declining the advances of a young woman who was offering, rather enthusiastically, to launch my blog. Without hesitation, I explained to her that, though flattered, I was very happily married to a beautiful woman whose colorful Spanish heritage included, among other things, castrating live bulls.

Following an uncomfortable silence, I was quickly given a lesson about blogs.

What they are.

How they work.

And why, on second thought, she would not be getting anywhere near mine.

Being a man, I instinctively responded by telling her I didn’t need her help anyway, and that I was perfectly capable of launching my own blog.

Probably in half the time.

This, of course, was a mistake. Not only because it stopped most of the conversation in the room, but also because I realized the only way to save my dignity was to create an actual weblog on the Internet.

This meant utilizing a part of my brain that often shuts down after just 10 minutes of trying to re-program the TV remote; this meant tapping into a series of synapses so gapped and corroded from disuse that getting them to fire would require surgically implanting a surge protector; this meant, above all else, running the risk of exceeding my brain’s operating capacity to the extent I find myself writing paragraphs that are merely a string of sentences joined together by semi-colons.

I decided the first step in building my blog was to get on the Internet and look at other people’s blogs. This, as you’ve probably heard, is extremely easy to do. In fact, I’d say there are more people on the Internet wanting to show off their blogs than just about anything else.

Eventually, though, everyone’s blogs start to look the same — at which point I came up with a list of ideas that, thanks to the Internet, I didn’t know you could do with your blog.

Next, I staked my claim by chosing a “domain name.” From what I understand, it is mine forever, much like the nickname “bleeder,” which has followed me since my less-than-epic tetherball showdown with Sarah Getlost in fifth grade.

For this reason I gave the name a lot of thought before finally — in a moment of epiphany — lightning struck:

nedhickson.wordpress.com.

Of course, there’s a lot more that goes into creating and launching a weblog than this. For example: whining continuously until a web-savvy co-worker agrees to help you.

That said, I hope you’ll check out my blog.

But please: keep any comparisons to yourself.

(You can write to Ned Hickson at nhickson@thesiuslawnews.com, or visit his blog at www. nedhickson.wordpress.com)