As of today – March 29, 2018 – Slope is a teenager.
Yes, thirteen years ago, at the prodding of a family member, I wrote my first blog post. In those days, I thought of blogs the same way I think of cryptocurrencies today – – as a fad with far too much media attention. Although I had sold my company, Prophet, just weeks earlier, I had resisted the nudges to start writing a blog in my free time, but I finally gave in. I’m glad I did.
Since this is, by definition, the thirteenth time I’ve written a “birthday” post, I was trying to think of something engaging or clever to write. I confess, I’m a bit stumped. In last year’s post, I already referenced some of the things I was considering here, such as Patton Oswalt’s birthday routine, so it’s clear I’m exhibiting a sign of age by way of repeating myself.
So instead, I’ll just engage in something I’m sure I don’t do nearly enough, and express my gratitude. Simply stated, I don’t know what I would do without Slope. It is a vessel for my expression. It is a canvas upon which I can create. It is a platform on which I can try to make a point. Slope has, in a very large way, become my life.
This would be meaningless without your presence. As some of you know, I have been online, in one form or another, since the 300-baud days of 1982. My very first touch-tone call to a local bulletin board service on my LYNX modem was the first step in a very long journey which has led me here. And although that journey has been one of almost complete solitude, it has simultaneously been one accompanied by countless thousands of followers, friends, and teachers.
We have collectively built something very special here. I am very close to pulling the wrapping paper off the new Slope of Hope, which the participants here richly deserve (and which PLUS members have been tinkering with for a few weeks now).
I just want you to know, on a personal level, that your presence and participation here gives me a reason to get up in the morning. As with most facts of a personal nature, that could be spun as very sad……….or very grateful. Take the grateful choice, because that is the way it is meant.
Thank you for being here long enough to see this entity into its teenage years. I offer my fondest wishes that the road ahead is filled with memories akin to the very best of adolescence, but without the acne.
Welcome, Slopers, to Year Fourteen, which begins……………now.
