open house

I am not what you’d call an early adaptor. I fear change. I’m currently listening to an ancient semi-portable radio that I can never turn off because it has a short and takes 10 minutes of jiggling the knob to turn back on again, and I just don’t have that kind of time. My favorite camera is a 35 millimeter Minolta circa 1987, which caused a waiter at a open air bistro to stop and exclaim, “Hey ~ I remember those! I think my father had one!”

I don’t own a microwave, although that’s less of a Luddite affliction than a lack of available counter space. I have a VCR Plus which malfunctioned a few years back and now can only tape the shows that I’m currently watching, which seems, you know, pointless. It's a VCR Minus.

I don’t own a cell phone, although I almost got one recently when my 92 year old mother needed a new one and it was offered to me. I somehow managed to leave without it. I think it frightened me. And up until a couple of months ago, I used a cassette player at the gym that was so large and bulky I practically had to carry it on my back. I only jettisoned it because it ate my the last of my tapes. (I miss you Bob Seger…)

So when I got my first computer 2 years ago and only about 15 years behind the cultural curve I was thrilled to find that it came with 6 months free of AOL. After noodling around for a bit I discovered AOL’s journal pages and was hooked. Press a button and pictures appear. Click another and post, change colors, edit entries, resize graphics and post again. No coding, no hassle, no knowledge required. Just click “It’s All About Me’ and yammer away. I loved it.

AOL’s wrongheaded decision to sell advertising space in the form of those glaringly awful headline banners on their relatively pricey subscriber pages (for those who had to pay) was enough to nudge quite a few to jump ship. As much as I balked it was, for me at least, a move whose time had come. For even as I rail, rant and rebel against leaving my cozy little comfort zone, I’ve come to realize in the past week or so that what I really wanted, and probably needed, was to be challenged; pushed into learning and forced into experiencing something new. I’m fairly adventurous in other aspects of my life (as long it doesn’t involve anything too technically advanced like say… a DVD player) and it bothered me how resistant I was to leaving home and venturing out into the world, as it were.

So here I am, and welcome to my new space. I like it. It’s still a little rough around the edges ~ I haven’t got all the links in and I’m not sure yet how to do internal links or relocate pics. I’d like to design a new title logo and maybe change some colors. The thing is, I just may be able to figure out how to do that now. With a little help from my friends, of course.

And that’s another thing ~ there’s still a community here, full of people who are generous, supportive and willing to throw a rope to those in need. New friends, old friends ~ we’re all just a click away. What’s the worst thing that could happen?

Right, don’t answer that.

Now I’m going to see if I can place a little gif. here, and if it works, I’m off to figure out Bloglines...

oops ~ my animated gif. is decidedly unanimated. Babysteps...