Mission Statement
I haven’t written anything that comes close to being a mission statement for this weblog. I’m not sure why I should even call it a mission statement but it does sound important, nor is a requirement for a weblog or for any document, but I will feel better with a definition in place. I will attempt to write this definition today. A statement that describes what this weblog is attempting to accomplish, to create, and/or to add to our collective conscience. This weblog, this spot on the ‘net, is for me to get some writing practice. It is to announce to friends and family that I am alive and probably in need of money. This site is to experiment with having a conversation with complete strangers on my forum.
Writing
The best way to improve writing skills is to write (I read that somewhere). It seems that the last time I did writing from a creative angle was when I was in high school, many years ago. I do some writing in my job but those are technical reports, bound by the constraints of a technical report. In high school I enjoyed writing book reports, short stories, and just free flowing thoughts onto paper. Ah paper, those were the good old days. In the old days I remember using paper and not having a software program correcting every spelling error I made. I made 3 errors just typing that sentence. With much needed practice I may be able to cut that statistic down to 2 errors (yes, I dream big). With practice I may be able to hold a thought for more than a paragraph. With practice I may improve my poor typing skills to the level I had in my days in the army. 40 wpm is not great but it’s better than my present -5 wpm (yes I’m actually erasing years of past work). With practice this may get easy.
Family and friends
I have a few. I have immediate family in the US (New Jersey and Florida). I have friends in New Jersey, in Japan, even in Singapore. Instead of trying to keep in touch with everyone (which I’m very bad at), I can keep this site and update it with news and notes and put the burden of responsibility on their shoulders to keep up with me. Yes it is the easy way out but I am in favor of the “easy way”. If someone asks me, “Do you want the easy way or the hard way?” I take the easy way every time; I’m just like that. That is in total disagreement with my mother who thinks I take the hard way every time, or is that my girlfriend? If you are wondering to yourself, “Does he need money?” Not for anything important but if you want to contribute there’s the donate button. That’s only there to help subsidize my Internet connection. In Japan ADSL is cheap, maybe the cheapest in the world but it ain’t free.
Conversations
This is a bit of an odd feeling. Talking to a word processor program about whatever is on my mind at the moment. This is while I know that everyone is looking over my shoulder. I figure that if I can keep the conversation pointed at one person then everyone that reads this will think they’re the one person. In actuality the one person I’m writing this to is my evil twin. Raul. If I speak in soothing tones to Raul (and he reads this page) then he stays quite and won’t make a fool of me. He has dressed in a gorilla costume and chased people at the zoo and worse. It’s always difficult to explain to the police that it wasn’t me but my evil twin Raul. No, no Raul, it’s ok, these people don’t want to hurt you. They’re your friends. NO Raul, not the gorilla costume, don’t put it back on, stop Raul, stop…
A promise
I am grateful for the opportunity to grace your web browser and I will try to maintain some modicum of integrity as I vomit my mental rambling to your screen. In fact I will go so far as to try to respect your screen and not to lie or cheat you in any way (and keep the vomit to a minimum). Thank you for your time and I hope this will be a long friendship between us.
