The other night at coffee, one of my motorcycling mates mentioned that he really enjoyed reading my blog. As always, I was very grateful and I explained a little to him of how come I had started writing the blog many years ago.
For my long-time readers this may seem a little boring but, for those who don’t know, it all started one day when my wife was harassing me about putting down in writing all the things that I had seen during my years of motorcycling and following motorcycle sport.
There was nothing new here, we’d had this conversation many times and, as always, my answer was that there simply wouldn’t be enough material for me to write a book, which is what she wanted me to do.
But this time I was trapped because the conversation took place in the presence of my best motorcycling buddy, Chris Mundy who I had known since the late 1970s and with whom I had ridden often since that time. Chris still lived in Canberra, still rode a bike and had lots of ideas of his own about how we could combine our passion for motorcycling with his rapidly-increasing involvement in computer-based publishing.
“Well,” he said, “If you don’t want to write a book, why don’t you do a blog?” To which I replied, “What’s a blog?” Right about now you can probably hear the sound of the trap springing shut. Chris went on to explain what a blog was, how it worked and how it would be an easy way for me to record my memoirs without the hassles of actually publishing a book. The idea was an attractive one because, firstly I could get Helena off my back about writing a book and, secondly, because it seemed to me that I should try and record the history of the Canberra road closure meetings, something that nobody else had done or was looking like doing. I also thought that it should be done because there wasn’t really anyone better qualified to do and that, the longer the task got left, the less chance there would be of an accurate and full record.
From there, things accelerated. Chris introduced me to WordPress, the preferred blogging software and showed me that, if I knew how to use Microsoft Word and Publisher, I could easily use WordPress.
Without going into detail I very quickly discovered that, far from running OUT of material about which to write, the more I wrote, the more material I started thinking about that I could use.
Now, WordPress allows the user to publish two types of content. The main one is called “Pages” and these are articles that are indexed and easily accessible and are more like features than news. The other category is called “Posts” and is more of the “news” side of the content. Unlike the Pages, the Posts are not indexable and they “age” as newer content is added. The best way of describing it is that Pages are like Forum articles and Posts are more like Facebook articles. I now add that this conversation took place in June 2008 and it was in July that I published my first blog article.
So, the other Tuesday night, after briefly explaining the above to Nigel, he said, “Well, why don’t you go back and republish some of those early articles just to show your readers how much things have changed? Maybe call it “Throwback Thursday” or “Flashback Friday.” he went on.
An old friend used to say that the obvious is not always apparent. So, thank you, Nigel, it truly is a great idea so here goes. If you follow the link below you will be able to read my very first blog article, published on the 17th of July 2008. I am planning on making this a regular feature of Fridays, so, welcome to my first Flashback Friday.
It was rain-free on Wednesday so I managed to get out for a quick blat up to the highlands.
