benjarvis.org

In the Beginning.

Way back in 2002 (before I knew of such things as WordPress, Moveable Type, or Joomla) I had a hand coded blog that I rarely updated. It was ugly and cumbersome; I’m not even sure that it was hosted by a legitimate web-host. The original point of that blog was to keep family and friends in Los Angeles up to date on my trials and travails in my new home of Austin, Texas. It failed and I sought out an easier way to share my thoughts.

Sometime in the spring of 2003, I joined LiveJournal. I fully intended it to be a place where I posted stories, music, art, and all of the creative output that I had been making for most of my adolescent and post-adolescent life. For a time I was prolific, but eventually it became a hangout. I made friends (which was great), I learned a lot from communities (also great), but eventually my creative output dried up. Here and there I released an MP3 or bits of fiction. I would review things or write a HOWTO on some subject. However, it was always couched in that familiar feeling: “but it’s on LiveJournal“. Would people find anything I posted? Would they take it seriously? Eventually, LiveJournal got sold to Six-Apart and the environment began to change. People got shut down for speaking their minds or posting controversial material. I didn’t like the idea of being censored or banned for something I posted. Even worse, people were losing their data. There was five years of my life, sitting on a server with no real guarantee that I would have access to it from one day to the next.

I did the LiveJournal thing for five years, but earlier this year I made the decision to move. I still have the account, but I’ve been slowly transitioning away from it. Today I finally got the extra scratch together to buy web-hosting. I have a lot planned: fiction, non-fiction, reviews, rants, music, art, and hopefully a podcast.

Stay tuned.