New blog on the way...

Well, if anyone even has this feed in their RSS reader, you'll know it's been a while and you'll also know it's always been a while for the past several years. I'll blog a few posts, stop, say I'm shutting this blog down and then post again a few months later. It's a ridiculous cycle.

I post a fair bit on my Tumbler Blog. But that is different. It's a quick picture here or a little something there. I basically use it as a photographical tweet. But it's like so many other "social" network sites these days. It's superfluous and artificial. There is no real connection to any readers or viewers. Much like Facebook and twitter have become.

I remember the blogging days of old. There seemed to be almost a group of bloggers that kind of "hung out" together. Like old farmers at the gas station coffee shop. Except it was all online. But there did seem a real sense of relationship there, and you did feel like you were getting to know the person. I've even met, in real life, several of the bloggers I hung out with online. It wasn't a means to self inflate the person posting, it was a genuine sharing of knowledge and experiences. It was reporting what what we were currently working on and learning on. We'd learn with them. It was rad.

Then, it just seamed to sort of fizzled out for the most part. Some of the prolific bloggers disappeared. Stopped posting. I was one of them that stopped posting (not that I was ever all that prolific). I was getting caught up in my new up and running photography business, and my focus changed. I wonder if that inner group of bloggers that actually get to know each other is still out there, and it's just me that's drifted off?

Another facet to that is the fact that my bicycling life has changed dramatically. I don't ride anymore like I used to. I don't obsess and spend any spare time working on bikes like I used to do. I've gotten back to a life long love I've had with firearms. I've taken up knife making. I've finally had success at hunting this past year and also fly fishing. With 4 kids that I'm wrapped up in, time just to myself is very limited and bike's just doesn't seem to make it in there.

Now of course I still do have bikes. Or, a bike I should say. I'm now down to 1 after selling 2 earlier this after several years of complete and utter neglect. I ended up selling off all of my classic, simple beautiful bicycles and bought a Kona Tanuki, because it seems easier to ride that with kids on dirt trails and on the paths in Fernie than anything else.

I am going to start blogging again, but coming at it as more of a writing outlet. It's not going to be some artsy-fartsy writing place. But I feel like I used to put more into the written part of a blog post. I did quite a bit of writing on my photography blog posts, but those were really more to impress people. Surfacely-cool words and meaningless phrases sprinkled with technical jargon would end up being all that it was. It was hollow. Look at me, look at me -(insert technical shit about about f-stops or something)- look at me!!!

I would just keep up on this blog, except that I feel I would fooling the readers regarding it's content based on the title. My interests that I would now be blogging about are quite broad. From my continued exploration in minimalism, craftsmanship, hunting, camping, bushcraft, survival and even a little touch here and there on preparedness. (I feel so dorking evening typing that last one).

Then there is the other side of the coin that says, the tittle of a blog is irrelevant. I still like the blogger platform, and I'm still comfortable with it. I would have a lot of history on the bicycle side of things. I still like this blog and it signifies to me a time of my life that I am proud of and enjoyed. I just don't like to watch it dying.

Anyway, long rambly post to get that off my chest. Again, not sure if anyone even has RSS feeders on this thing, but I'm going to do some searching and get back into that sense of community that I think is one of the very few good places that there are on the old inter-webs.

Cheers!