Still standing...
Here I am sitting at the terminal waiting for boarding. It had to throw away my calorie drinks because they were too big. ๐ I booted up my laptop to find that the battery had drained to 4 minutes, so I made my way to an empty gate to plug into the Matrix and juice up.
Time to check out the blog stuff going on with the other SOBCon folks all converging today and get some game time in before my flight.
YAY for early Friday World of Warcraft.
I packed my laptop bag last night and got my digital camera, business cards, and did online check-in. I got in to work early to get some hours in before heading to the airport. My wife is picking me up so we can keep my car at home.
We’ll stop at Subway on the way to TIA and I’ll scoot right through security with my carry on and start blogging and playing World of Warcraft on my 4 1/2 year old laptop. The graphics and memory suck and it’s died with a full motherboard replacement twice while under warranty. No warranty now, so I’m going to run it until it dies.
I’ve got my latest Clive Cussler paperback, Black Wind, for my reading pleasure on the plane (when I’m not sleeping). I had a hard decision between Ted Bell and Cussler, but I went with the lighter one. Sorry, Ted. Speaking of Ted, that’s what I’m flying, so watch the news to make sure I get there okay. I convinced (not really) my wife that if anything happens to the pilot in any situation, including her biggest post-9/11 fear, when we regain control, I can land the plane.
Now we’re getting off-topic, but this is my blog, so you’ll keep reading. / sly grin. I’ve been flying flight simulators for years. I was landing F-16s, F-14s, 747s, Cessnas, and all kinds of WWII planes 8 years before I could get behind the wheel. I learned the mechanics and glide slope and instrument panels, and studied flight for endless hours as a boy in rural Ohio. When I was 15, my neighbor let me take the stick on his experimental plane and fly it around for about 30 minutes.
When we moved to Tampa, one of our good friends at church was an engineer at a flight simulator company, and he invited my dad and me in to fly one of the big cargo planes. At 16, I landed that puppy every time; and then I got a job at that same company (where I am now) and landed it again when I got another shot at it, so I don’t see an Airbus A300 being a problem.
I’ll send you all a happy “hello” again from Chicago.
What would you write if this was your last blog post ever? In a meme started by Urban Monk, I’m following Starbucker’s lead within my sphere of reading and joining in on the fun. Here is the call:
The blogosphere is ending. No more blogs. Blog apocalypse. The internet is still working, the world is fine. But you canโt write anymore. Write your last post. Make it a good one. What is the reason you blog? What is the last gem of knowledge you want to leave? What do you want to be remembered for? Who are you? What is the meaning of life? Hahaโฆwell not exactly but you get the point. Pour your heart into it.
This should be fun. Here goes:
It has been fun. It has been good. Has it been really good?
Yes, I’d say it has. I started Gitr’s WoW Blog on Blogger back in 2005 with no hopes or aspirations of anything cool, other than journaling my journey with my computer character through my newest game. Little did I know that I would start getting traffic from Google, getting a domain, and becoming known as Gitr around the world.
I have learned about CSS code, WordPress, affiliates, copyediting for online content, and forged new friendships both in-game and in real life (YAY SOBCon07!). I have written over 600 posts to date and check my site stats hourly during the work day. Now it is all over. The blogosphere is collapsing.
Never fear. I’ll still be here. My wife and I will survive and go on to new things of my geeky taste. I’ll find something to do.
I leave you with this little thought.
Find something that you enjoy. Plant that seed and let it grow. Watch it blossom and branch out into something that you care about and that others come to sit under its shady canopy. Then give those seeds to others to plant and have their own refuges to let others come to. Pass the love. Share the joy.
