Five Years Ago Today

Fiat Lux came into being on September 1st 2003.

How the blog got started is a pretty prosaic story: I was feeling a little homesick and nostalgic, it was a slow weekend, and a friend who’d recently taken to blogging was urging me to give it a try. So I grabbed a copy of Moveable Type, got some web hosting, and did so.

The past 5 years have seen me through a move to the ‘burbs, grad school, three jobs, comedy, tragedy, and plenty of just plain living. My blogging frequency (and focus) has been all over the place. One thing hasn’t changed, though. I ended my first post by saying:

What next? Who knows. But I think that I’d like to blog the journey.

I still don’t know what’s coming next, but I still want to blog the journey. So here’s to the next five years! Let’s see where they lead.

And thank you for being with me as I do it.

45 Years After Dr King: Obama Nominated

I spent the evening watching Obama’s historic speech in a packed hotel room in downtown San Francisco. I got home to find close to 100 posts piled up in the “Politics” section of my feed reader. With that amount of text flying, it’s virtually impossible to find anything to say that’s truly original, and there are far better writers than me who will turn out much more lyrical paeans to Obama’s speech.

So I’ll just share one part of the speech, that made my jaw drop amidst all the cheers and even a couple of tears:

….part of what has been lost these past eight years can’t just be measured by lost wages or bigger trade deficits. What has also been lost is our sense of common purpose, and that’s what we have to restore.

We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country.

The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than they are for those plagued by gang violence in Cleveland, but don’t tell me we can’t uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals.

I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in a hospital and to live lives free of discrimination.

You know, passions may fly on immigration, but I don’t know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers.

But this, too, is part of America’s promise, the promise of a democracy where we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort.

Obama called out what are arguably the four most divisive issues in American domestic policy, and talked about trying to find common ground on them.

A less gutsy politician wouldn’t have done that. And in fact the speech could have been just fine without that section. But no, Obama went the extra mile and took all four of them head on.

Election Day is less than 70 days away. Bring it on. We’re ready.

Pandora Users, Any Advice?

So… I’ve been messing around trying to get Pandora working well for me. I set up a channel and added several song / artist seeds. Then I started thumbing up or down the songs that Pandora suggested for me.

The problem is that now it seems that the only music Pandora plays for me is the stuff I thumbed up, with very little in the way of new music.

What am I doing wrong? Should I un-thumb some of the stuff I previously thumbed up? Add more artist or song seeds? Clear everything out and start over?

Or is Pandora just confused by my admittedly picky listening preferences?

If anyone has suggestions, let me know. And here’s a link to the channel in question, if you’re curious.

Quick Update

I’ve been at the new job for three months now. Sometimes I still feel like a total newbie, other times I feel like I’ve been at this for much longer. The workload continues intense, which has done a number on the amount of free time I have for activities like blogging. I wish I could say that will change, but it’s more likely that posting about once a week is going to be the new normal around here.

I may occasionally whine a little about the workload or the tidal waves of email coming into my in-box, but don’t let that fool you — this job rocks and I’m having a great time doing it. It’s a rare gift to wake up in the morning and feel this stoked about going to the office.

Saturday we’re heading up to WordCamp, and then Sunday through Wednesday I will be down at 360|Flex. This will be my very first Flex conference, and it looks like it’s going to be a blast.

Unfortunately, it looks like we’re going to bag out on BlogWorldExpo, which is a disappointment. I was looking forward to it, but with everything else going on right now, getting away for it is going to be a little too much to manage.