Beginnings

Originally, I had planned on starting this blog last weekend, but found myself feeling less than inspired. What on earth would I blog about? And its not like this is my first blog. For the years I lived at university, I updated regularly on livejournal with posts meant for my friends, all of whom lived in separate cities for their own schools. And in the end, where most high school relationships dissolved after starting postsecondary ed, ours continued as if nothing had changed. Whoever said long distance relationships cant last clearly didn’t have LJ and friends as crazy as mine. Eventually most of us graduated or changed schools and once again were within a five minute drive of each other and LJ disappeared from most of our internet bookmarks.
After I got my Canon Rebel digital camera, I joined a Photoblog, and posted daily pictures that I had taken, both new and old, digital and film. This blog served a completely different purpose. Where LJ was totally and completely private, with only five allowed readers, this photo blog was viewed by anyone who was interested. And people were interested. I received complements for my pictures from people all over the world. It was very cool.
However, as cool as it was, I eventually fell out of habit of the photo blog. Life got busy, I was starting a new year at school where I was doing several all-nighters in a week and was taking less pictures. I still posted pictures on Deviant Art, a giant global Art site that is less of a blog and more of a personal gallery. Blogging became useless to me. If I wanted to tell people about my day, I called and told them. If they wanted to see my pictures, they were all up on my deviant account.
Then last year in the fall, my younger brother bought a new laptop and gave his old one to my parents. Little did anyone know that this charitable action would change my parents lives considerably. The old family computer, which was located in the basement, was ancient in computer years. It took five minutes to boot up, and don’t even get me started on how long it took to load a new webpage. And then all of a sudden Mom and Dad could turn on their ‘new’ computer and check their mail before the coffee had even finished brewing. The wonders of the technological age were now that much closer to them.
Within a month my mom was on Facebook daily. Within two months my Dad had discovered Blogging. And in the end, really, that’s where this blog is coming from.
I have to admit, in the beginning, I shook my head at my Dads blog. “Yeah Great Dad” I’d think, “You posted about Christmas. I was kind of there though. I don’t really need the recap.” (this mostly stems from my frustration with friends who still post regularly on LJ and when I ask them what is new in their life, they tell me “Go read my LJ, everything is in there!” This is number 16 on my pet peeve list.)
However, despite my misgivings, I found myself starting to look forward to his blog, and eventually, other blogs as well.

And now I find myself here. With a really long intro to a blog that I’m still not sure what I’ll fill with. This isn’t a blog for my friends so they can keep up with what’s new in my life, though I suspect there will be one or two friends who will (pats shoulder) and it wont be a place for just my photography. I might post some of my graphic design work, drawing and whatever randomness that I feel like sharing with the vast interwebs. It’s a new beginning, and to whomever it may concern, I hope you enjoy reading this.

The Original Ashley