I heard from my friend, Stan Herman, with a couple of thought-provoking questions that I'd like to address. First, he asked "Is it your intent to keep it like a running diary of external events that cross your path + internal musings about yourself?--how deep will you go?" The answer as to the depth question is probably further than I should. That's my general tendency anyway. Once when I was being quite open about things that were going on with me in an online community called ILink Writers, one of the participants asked why I didn't just keep a diary rather than put such things out in the public online. My answer was "a diary doesn't talk back." It's nice to have others contribute their thoughts when you are so stupidly-bold as to reveal your inner thoughts online. And of course, not all that feedback is necessarily supportive. Still, I value openness and I'm too old to hold back any more, just to gain people's acceptance.

Stan's other question was "Do you want others to join in?--if so, how?" The answer to that is more problematic. The first part is yes, of course, I want others to join but how? So far as I'm aware, Blogger, the program used to generate these entries online, doesn't have the capability for others to post to the page. Therefore, the main way for you to participate is by emailing me directly and recognizing that so long as you are dealing with what is posted on these pages, I may be replying to your comments in this space.

Blogger Pro, an fee-based version of this software, may have other capabilities that I haven't yet explored. I think I'll continue to use the free version for a time while I learn to use the system before moving to the more advanced version.

While I'm talking about Blogger, I must say that one of the nicest features of it is that it is browser based. That means that you don't need any special software to be able to make entries. From any browser, anywhere you can log into the site and post updates. That is a real advantage. If I should even have some free time at work, I can post to this site from there. Free time at work, however, seems to be hard to come by.
- posted by Perry @ 9:37 PM