I was cleaning up old backup files when I found it: a single 1.33GB compressed file with “metahead” in the name.
It took me a second. Then it came back to me. A long time ago, I used to write here about things that were happening to me and things I found interesting. We called it blogging then.
I started in 2003, on Movable Type. WordPress had only just come out that year. Over the next few years, the blog had a few redesigns and restarts, and I didn’t really back anything up until 2008. Everything I wrote before that is gone.
How it stopped
The oldest post that survived is from October 2008. It was about a spam email from a domain seller. Not exactly literature, but it was mine.
Then life happened. Relationships, work, family. I couldn’t keep juggling all of it at once, and something had to give. The blog was the easiest thing to put down.
I didn’t stop abruptly. There was no farewell post. I just wrote a little less, then a lot less, until one day I wasn’t writing at all. That’s how most personal blogs die, I think. Not with a decision, but with a long, slow drift.
What was in the file
Seeing that backup sitting in my drive brought back a lot of memories.
Not every post survived. But every one that did, and the date on it, came with a memory or two attached. Most of them happy. Some sad. A few downright depressing.
Reading them again, I realized it was never really about the posts. A complaint about a domain registrar or a fix for a printer stuck on “Initializing” doesn’t mean much to anyone else. To me, each one is a bookmark. It marks where I was in life when everything great and not so great was happening at the same time.
I survived that period. I’d like to believe I remember all the lessons.
Two decades later
That oldest surviving post is almost two decades old, and I started writing here even earlier. I’ve lost a few people since then. But the good memories remain, and that’s what matters.
So I’ve brought the old posts back. They’re here with their original dates, typos and outdated advice included. Some I’ll rewrite, because the topics still matter. Some I’ll leave exactly as they were, because they’re a record of who I was when I wrote them.
Why I’m restarting
Life is a lot more boring now. I mean that in the best way. I have more time to read, and hopefully, this time, to write.
I’ll write about the same kinds of things as before: domain names, building websites, and the tech and tools I use every day. A lot has changed since then, so I’ll probably note how things are different now. And if memory permits, I’ll try to recall some of the notable moments from that era and put them down in writing before they fade for good.
I won’t promise a schedule. The homepage says “blogging irregularly,” and I mean that, too.
If you read metahead the first time around, welcome back.
If you’re new, hello. Pull up a chair. You want a cold one?