Happy Birthday, Blog!

From Boundless I learned that the Wall Street Journal is running a celebration for the blog;  a birthday celebration, that is:

Happy Blogiversary

It's been 10 years since the blog was born. Love them or hate them, they've roiled presidential campaigns and given everyman a global soapbox. Twelve commentators -- including Tom Wolfe, Newt Gingrich, the SEC's Christopher Cox and actress-turned-blogger Mia Farrow -- on what blogs mean to them.

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So, in celebration, I thought I would show you all my first blog.  (Yeah, I know - kinda nerdy and self promoting -- it's for the blog birthday party, though)  Debuted on my first website roughly 9 years ago (November 1998), it was part of a series that ran for 13 posts lasting through October 30 1999.  Now that I look back at them, I find them very trite, naive, and innocent.

 So here is the unedited raw content, save a few opsec edits, of the first blog I wrote. 

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Vol. 1.1

November 1998

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New way to get news.

Hello everyone! I am trying out this format to see if this will be a good way to get the news out. I would appreciate feedback on this. I plan to make this available online also. Email me @ old email address to start receiving it via email.

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The Past 5 Months

Because this is the first time that I have communicated with some of you for a long time I am going to give a quick summary of the past 5 months.

The trip out to California was a fun, yet long one. We started out on a rainy day and had rain every day until we got to Wyoming. But most of the rain was at night. We were able to see anything we wanted to see when we wanted because during that time it was not raining. We still have dents in our car from the hail that fell in Missouri.

Our entire trip from Ohio to California took us through the states of Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and then to California. I was able to drive in all of the states and I drove from just outside of Las Vegas all the way into a rest stop in California.

We were able to see sights in Illinois where Abraham Lincoln lived and in Kansas where Eisenhower lived. In Colorado we saw family and friends and also went to Focus on the Family the day that Dr. Dobson had a stroke. (There is no connection between the two incidents.)

In Wyoming we saw lots of animals along the road and also saw a nice sunset. In Utah we went to Bryce Canyon and saw the sun rise over the canyon. It was cool. From there we drove to the city where my mom and dad had part of their honeymoon. We also ate at Carl's Jr. (A West Coast fast food joint - my favorite).

When we first arrived in LA we stayed in the old LIFE (Bible College) men's dorm (now the Angelus Bible Institute dorm). LIFE was where mom and dad met.

We were immediately accepted into the church, but I had several of the experiences with people recognizing me, but I had a blank mind on who they were. Oh well!

We are now in a church-owned house in Glendale, which is about 8 miles from the church and 10 miles from the school.

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New School

We are now attending school name. It is a small school district made up of three schools (Elementary, Middle, and High) on one campus. The total enrollment is 1950 students. Each grade has about 150 students and the classes are about 20-30 in size.

The school has several bus routes and we take one of them to get to school. The stops are near our house - one is just across the street.

When I first saw the school, I decided that out of all of the schools that we had seen that this was the one that I wanted to go to. The campus was the only one that said "come here." All the other schools that we had visited looked run down and did not look inviting.

This has turned out to be a very good school. I am taking 3 AP classes that allow me to earn college credit for them. None of the other schools that we looked at offered any of these classes. This is allowing me to prepare more for college and get ahead in my studies so that I can get into a good college.

The students and staff at school name have been friendly and helpful. Even in such a large school, we are not lost in the crowd. The staff knows our family and so do many of the students. I am a Teacher's Assistant for the Athletic Department and it is going well. The secretaries and the Athletic Director are nice and they are good friends. I have been able to help them and they have welcomed me warmly to the school.

School is going well, we are just passed the first quarter; wow time flies. It seems like we have just been in school for a short time, but semester exams are coming up quickly. Just about 6 weeks of school and then we are in the 2^nd Semester!

I think that "senioritus" is starting to affect me even though I am a junior. Most of my classmates are seniors and the juniors that are not are also being affected with senioritus. Maybe it should be called "upperclassmenitus".

All in all it has been a good time at school name. Our grades are good and so are the teachers and friends.

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Mission's Trip

Brother's name and I are preparing to go with some of our youth group to Tijuana, Mexico this weekend. We leave the day after Thanksgiving and return on Sunday. (I know that some will receive this after the trip is over. I will describe it in the next issue) The trip has been planned for several months, but we did not know that we would be going until about two months ago.

The youth leadership is wanting this trip to be a giving time. They wanted everyone to supply there own way to go. I at first declined in late August because I did not have the money to go. In October I was again asked if I wanted to go and I said that I did (I did, but did not have the money). They said to not worry about the money. I mentioned to them that I could go if I got enough money from my birthday. This was on a Sunday; by Wednesday all of the money came in and I was able to go.

We have 4 teams that are going down to TJ. We have a worship team, puppet team, drama team and prayer team. Everyone is a member of two teams. I am on the worship team and the puppet team. Brother's name is on the puppet team and the prayer team. We are going to be going to two orphanages and two churches and we are staying at LIFE Tijuana (a Bible college). We will be teaching a youth group there how to do puppets and drama. It is during a pastors' conference and we will be doing part of a service for the pastors. We are told that they are eager to have us come. For them it is strange to have teenagers who would be willing to go on a missions trip.

Thank you to everyone who helped me go.

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My 17^th Birthday

For my birthday we had a small family party, but family names surprised me and my friends at school with a pizza. My spanish teacher gave me some Dr. Pepper and the Athletic Department gave me a cake and a card. It was fun. Some friends at church gave Mark and I a joint party and they gave me a nice shirt and some money. I used the money to get some more CDs. Like I stated earlier most of the money that I got for my birthday I used to pay for the missions trip.