Like Joe Mac says, it's officially ovah

Like the lyric's say, it's officially over.

Yesterday I added the 123 comments from my off-site guest book to the corresponding entries, threw the pictures of the Inauguration on three posts I did in January of '05 . . . and then I sat around looking for something else to do, some reason to stick around and delay leaving my beloved AOL site.

In the end there was nothing, and I realized I was hanging around solely for sentimental reasons. I logged onto Blogger and portered the site over, then spent some time trying to gussy up the site. It's still pretty plain, but I'll work on it.

So that's it. Just like that 3 years, 11 months and a week of blogging is kaput. Sure, I'll carry on and I don't want to make this into more than it is, but AOL was the scrapbook for a HUGE portion of my life. Not chronologically of course, but in terms of pure value.

Looking over my old entries I saw YaYa's first ever day of school, pictures of LuLu as a rambunctious toddler (man, do you forget how they change when you see them everyday!), and shots of Smiley as a baby - in fact, I remember running home from the hospital to post a picture of him the very day he was born.

[Last night I showed him those posts and he argued, in Smiley-speak, that I was wrong. 'Bay-bee!' he said forcibly, time and again. Apparently he believes he was put on this Earth fully formed as a toddler ;)]

There are comments about my Grandma's reactions to posts, and there is the post about her passing away. There are posts about big events like that and small but special things that I'd long forgotten, like LuLu having a rare accident on the floor during her potty-training or stopping for a burger in D.C.

During the four years this blog chronicled our family grew by two children, we bought our own home, I was promoted and left third shift, and most importantly the New Kids on the Block reunited (I kid, I kid - that's no more than the 10th most important item from those years).

Two things I notice from the old posts: I had a consistent and public desire to improve the product that was AOL Journals, dating back to posts of April of '05. Many of the items I groused about led to the insular, niche mentality that doomed these journals, and it's sad to see the writing on the wall even then. Second, while I look more or less the same ol' same ol', my wife looks 10,000 times hotter than she did when we were in the midst of expanding this family. That may sound like a half-assed compliment, but trust me - I thought she was hot then, but I'm a much bigger fan today :)

Anyhow, adios AOL. To paraphrase whoever, we really knew ye.

You can find me now at www.slapinions.blogspot.com

If you typically enter via www.slapinions.net, it will still direct you here until the end of the month, when I'll have it start to point to Blogger.

See you on the flip side and remember - last one out, please turn out the lights.

Goodbye!


Tags: The End