"Hello World" Blog Post

Hello World!

For those of you out there who are not software developers, you might not have caught the intended humor in the above greeting for my first blog post EVER...

I'm a software engineer, and yes, we are sometimes known for our corny sense of humor.  You see, in software development, when we are first acquainting ourselves with a new computer programming language, software platform, framework, or other technology, we developers often create a quick-and-dirty "Hello World" program/prototype that..... You guessed it! ...prints the simple output "Hello World!" to the screen.  You know, just to get a feel for the new environment before moving on to more complicated and actually useful functionality.

And since I have never so much as kept a journal for more than a few days, blogging will be a completely new experience for me.  Thus, you are reading my "Hello World" blog post.  I have no idea how difficult it will be to come up with interesting content or creative ways to present it.  Perhaps I'll be horrible at it, and this will become merely an online set of personal memoirs -- provided that I keep up with it.  But if that is all I achieve in this venture, it will be worth taking the time to write.  I imagine (and desperately hope) that I will improve with experience.  But it won't happen without practice, so let's get to it!  You're my guinea pig.

I've only recently began reading blogs, so beyond my feeble attempt at humor, I'm really not sure how to begin writing a blog.  I guess I'm just gonna try to follow my common sense, and assume you might initially want to know the answers to some of the following questions about me to determine whether you want to continue reading.  I mean there are plenty of valuable ways to spend your time, right?

1. Who is this guy?
2. Where did he come from?
3. What does he do for a living?
4. Why is he blogging?
5. What does he plan to blog about?
6. What does he hope to accomplish by blogging?

Well..... Honestly, it could take me significantly more than a few lines to answer each of these questions, and that would mean this post would be too long for a "Hello World" post.  So to be fair, I'll give some brief answers in this post, and then divulge a little more in my next post.... or five.

1. Who is this guy?  I'm a 35yo husband to a beautiful wife, father (and stepfather) of four amazing kids, software engineer by trade, and son of God by salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.  If somehow I have managed to attract any readers, I suspect some may have just changed the channel after that last comment.  It's ironic to me how Jesus offends people.  At any rate, if I haven't lost you by this point, I'm thrilled.  Let me be clear that it is not my intent to blog frequently on religious topics.  But as you may just be getting to know me, it IS very much who I am, so I refuse to hide it, and I reserve the right to post about spiritual things on occasion..... Full disclosure!
2. Where did he come from?  I was born in Alabama, but I grew up in Pensacola, FL.  Go P'town!!!  I now live on the east coast of Central Florida.  Although I have traveled a bit, I've lived in Florida for almost my entire life.  I'm proud to have some southern, "country" roots, y'all.
3. What does he do for a living?  I already disclosed that in #1.  Were you paying attention?
4. Why is he blogging?  A couple of months ago, my cousin, Amy, was diagnosed with breast cancer, only a couple of years after my other cousin, Becky, her older sister had also been diagnosed with breast cancer.  I know, crazy unfair, isn't it?  To make a long story short, they both have positive prognoses.  They are also both bloggers.  Initially, I started reading their blogs as a way to keep up with the latest status of their treatments and trials and updates.  But since they are such talented, articulate, accomplished, witty, and interesting people, I've been captivated by their posts.   Do yourselves a favor and check them out here: Becky and Amy.  Just make sure you come back over here to my blog!  J/K.  So I've been thinking, "Hey.... Why can't I do that?"  (Not as creatively, of course.)  And that's why I'm here.  To share experiences, ideas, and maybe just give you a day-in-the-life of ME.
5. What does he plan to blog about?  In short, life.  Anything I find relevant, controversial, amusing, unbelievable, vexing, frustrating, or encouraging.  What do you want to hear about?
6. What does he hope to accomplish by blogging?  Where do I start?  Personal journal for posterity and retrospection.  A way to keep my remote family and friends in touch with what's going on in our lives.  I have a theory that it may be therapeutic.  Maybe I'll even develop a gift of gab that will generate enough traffic to make some extra coinage......  Ok, probably not, but a guy can dream, can't he?

Time to wrap it up.  It was nice to meetcha.  Thanks for stopping by.  Please come back again soon and stay a while.... ya hear?

Hello?  <tap, tap>  Is this thing on?  Anybody out there at all?  What do you think?  Let me hear ya?

-Jonathan