Friday, November 8, 2013

Ten Years

Ten years ago today — Saturday, November 8, 2003 — I wrote this:

Here Goes…

Welcome to Bark Bark Woof Woof, a blog dedicated to my take on life, the universe and everything with my unique sense of dry amusement. The title comes from a guy I once worked for who said “bark bark woof woof” instead of “et cetera, et cetera,” and in memory of my dog, Sam, who was my best friend for 13 years.

Since then, I’ve moved to two different places, been through three computers, I’m on my second Mustang, and written close to 20,000 posts here.  Three presidential elections, ten Detroit Tiger seasons, a couple of hurricanes, one off-off-Broadway production, over a thousand music videos, theatre festivals, car shows, innumerable cultural references to Mel Brooks, M*A*S*H, and the Marx Brothers, and all — I hope — with the sense of humor and insight that I aspired to when I said that I was just “trying to get through life without bumping into the furniture.”

Something like this does not happen in a vacuum, even when some of my posts suck.  I started out by being a commenter at other blogs and met like-minded people who amazed and inspired me to try it for myself.  That’s how I met NTodd, who, it turns out, spent his childhood in my home town, and who served — and still does — as mentor and touchstone for what’s worth writing about.  Soon I met a lot of other bloggers and made friends and actually met a couple of them in person.  That is one of the enigmas of this craft: you form close bonds with people you’ve never met.

Among those are Melissa McEwan at Shakesville, who one day casually dropped me a note inviting me to be a contributor.  I was stunned and honored beyond words, and from that has grown a bond that has taught me so much about being a better person, a listener, and a feminist.  There is so much to admire about Melissa’s strength, courage, and just plain Liss-ness.

Michael J.W. Stickings at The Reaction has been a good friend and teacher, and being a part of his group is both an honour (the blog is based in Canada) and a welcome challenge to keep up to the standards that he sets for liberalism unbound.  Every year when I go to Stratford we talk about meeting in person, and some day it will happen.

None of what you see here would be possible without the help and guidance of my brother CLW.  Not just on the technical side — the countless hours of design work front and back and support when hackers attack — but also for the brotherly love and inspiration of topics and views that go way beyond C++.

I know that if I listed all the people who have been a part of these ten years, I’d be rattling off names for a long, long, time, and the cake would get stale.  So let me say to each of you who has been with me since 2003 or if you just clicked on the link last week: thank you.  I appreciate you more than you know, and as Bilbo Baggins famously said, “I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.”

And with that… here’s the cake.

BBWW 10th Birthday Cake

What’s next?

20 barks and woofs on “Ten Years

  1. Has it really been ten years? Wow! That means I’ve been blogging 10 years as well, since I started in May of 2003. Granted, I switched blogs. But still. Anyway, congratulations! And thanks for the piece of cake!

  2. Happy tenthiversary! BBWW is the 1st blog visit of the day for me and always provides thoughtful material. Having a website is a lot of hard work and time commitment. Ya done good, kiddo!

  3. Me too! This is the first place I visit on line everyday. When your postings are light, it like a day without sunshine. Keep spreading the sunshine.

  4. one of my big claims to internet fame is I believe I posted the first comment on your original site (unless I’m misremembering, in which case I have no claims or fame). Happy blogiversary!

  5. “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts” Winston Churchill
    Mazel Tov on this milestone, may you enjoy many more.

  6. Proud to have played a small part in your success. But all the kudos go to you for a decade of tireless work that never fails to delight.

  7. Congratulations on 10 years! Thank you for creating something so consistently great — this blog remains a must read for me. You set the example.

  8. OK, the Herald and the NYTimes come first, but BBWW is always the third element of my morning, and maybe the first part of forming my outlook on the day. Thanks MB, I know I can drive you crazy, but you, dear friend, have always driven me to a fine kind of… uncrazy?

  9. Ok, 10 years of blogging aside, you have to fix the cake. Purple icing for the letters, purple border on the #1 and BLUE on the zero?? So sad. (wink)

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