As I write this first blog post my website is not yet active and on the internet. So my guess is that no one will be reading it for a while. I am still not sure how often I will post on here or what I will post. Social media can be a vast void that can consume one’s time and I hope I utilize this blog to focus on my energies and express myself openly than I might not do so in other platforms. It’s difficult for me to know what to share and where to share with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. But here goes nothing…
My first online presence was through a platform called LiveJournal. I just tried to see if I can find it still but no luck. I may be able to find it after more digging but maybe it’s better that I don’t see what I wrote on there. It was during my emo-listening undergraduate days and I don’t know what state of mind I was in during that time. I also had a MySpace page but this was before Facebook really took off. I remember not liking Facebook because you couldn’t personalize your page like you could on MySpace. I found this page but there isn’t much on it besides some pictures and “connections” with friends. Here is the page if you want a glimpse of simpler times. It looks very different from what I remember.
This new website is my third attempt to have an online presence. I first created a personal website back in 2005 when I was applying for graduate school. The site was made with the help of my friend Keith Smith on a really old version of the program DreamWeaver. It tried showcase my musical skills and abilities I had at the time so that my potential graduate school percussion professors could check out what I was up to. The sight had no “flash”…well, I take that back. It did use Flash but not to what is capable today. It had some links that changed color when you scrolled over them and a changing picture slideshow thing. It was a real dinosaur compared to what websites can do today.
The second site I created was while I was in graduate at the University of Iowa. It was made through Apple’s website creator program called iWeb. It was great and so easy to use but alas, Apple stopped updating and creating new versions. I believe I had two versions of this site; one for while I was still in school and one once I left Iowa to start “real life” after school. The real life version is the one that is still online now but once the domain transfer happens this WordPress site will take its place.
This second site was basic but had all the things I wanted posted online on there. It has a bio, events, a page for clinics and masterclasses, a page for custom percussion arrangements. It took a long time to cultivate the site to what it is now and I hope this new site will be along the same lines but we the extra fancy bells and whistles.
So that’s it for my first blog post. Thanks for taking the time to read it. I hope I can keep it updated often. If no one reads the posts I hope it will serve as a reminder and snapshot of my life during this time. But I hope I don’t lose it like I did with my MySpace and LiveJournal accounts. Speaking of that, I shall see if I can see if Google can scavenge something up.
PS I know there are probably typos in this but I’ll proofread the rest of my posts from now on. 🙂
