The Life and Times of Elliot Pike

This article from the New York Times about the contraction of the blogosphere caught my eye. It’s relevant because, well, how many times have I written that “wow, it’s been a year since I updated my blog!” entry.

Some really quick thoughts:

• Part of the reason for me is that life gets too busy to prioritize blogging. Thus the brevity of this entry.
• My life has “seasons” that span years where I go from being busy to having free-time, from having a new passion about a new topic to being listless, from wanting to enthusiastically share my life to wanting to lick my wounds in private. Some of these “seasons” lend to blogging than others. Part of my recent “quiet period” is being in a long-term relationship for the first time.
• One of my recent curiosities has been SEO optimization and web site development strategy, and this smells like opportunity. I just don’t know how much. It would be interesting to know how Google’s always-changing algorithms detect and adjust-for abandoned content.

I just read a great article at A List Apart called Managing Werewolves I just had to mention. I’m working the corporate job at a pretty decent company (top 100 best companies to work for, supposedly) and my one-year anniversary is 8 days away.

Something about myself: I jump from “drinking the kool-aid, enthusiastic team player” to “disillusioned, glum guy with a storm cloud over his head” too quickly. I admit it, it’s a failing, but something I’m working on. Anyway, the article is light and tongue-in-cheek, but it really has a point: office politics is real; it is a game; when played for what it is, one not only increases the chances of winning, but probably increases the chances of having fun. It’s a game, after all, isn’t it?

I was looking over this old site and blog and came across a little post I did in September 2009 about a new boyfriend. Well, we’re about a month away from our two-year anniversary, we have a dog, and he officiallly moved-in about two or three months ago.

Since then I’ve gone from being hopelessly unemployed to working the worst job of my life to working maybe the best job of my life. (The verdict is still out on that one!) He has gone from being hopelessly unemployed to building a promising and growing business, Studio Scroggie. We’ve shared many memories together over these “short” two years. Let’s hope for many more to come!

I was hanging with my Cousin Bruce in Seattle, and in the midst of conversation he gave a great quote:

God gave us family so we would know how to choose our friends.

I don’t have an exact source. Bruce mentioned a Minister Groff from his childhood. Maybe someday I’ll look to see if the source can be tracked down. Anyway, when I get organized I should add it to my database of quotes.

This isn’t going to be the great “Where’s he been for the last two months?!?” kind of entry. But I’m going to try soon to figure out what I can write about my life. It has been eventful.

First of all, in case you are wondering with baited-breath… yes that “certain someone” is still in my life. We’ve now known each other for over 4 months, and we’ve been “boyfriends” for 2. It hasn’t been easy—in fact some of it has been a sheer living Hell—but in some ways it’s been been incredibly rewarding.

A personal confession: this is my first actual real relationship. I’ve dated and had “boyfriends” before, but only very briefly. In fact, I had this “five week curse” where every relationship would, whether by me or the other guy, get terminated at almost exactly five weeks. I’ll also say very very briefly what the “Hell” I’m referring to is: he is battling a pretty serious addiction. That’s it. I’m not going to say any more. Right now things are looking good, although the last month had been pretty rocky. But I’ve got high hopes.

Now the real reason I’m writing this blog entry: I’m just wanting to try out an Apple application that allows blog entries to be written on my computer (as opposed to using a web interface) and is supposed to interface with WordPress. We’ll see how well it works. (While I’m at it, here’s a goofy self-portrait. I’m really testing the image upload functionality.)

Update: the application sucks. That’s okay, the web interface for WordPress is pretty darned advanced. I don’t feel I’m missing much.