five

5 years ago I started blogging in order to follow my daughter's mission trip to Belize. In order to open my mouth and make a comment on the team's updates, I had to register first. That's like waving a red flag in the bullring. And I'm not comparing myself to the matador.

After several more missions accomplished, my weblog is still unlocked with the pass key from the right Gmail account. 5 years ago, I didn't have one Gmail account and now I have two. That's not even counting the original AOL charged by the minute and the Comcast account and the one over at Yahoo. I think Hotmail gave up on me several times. A nice thing I've noticed is the decline in spam. Either the filters have improved or spam's given up on me too.

Things have gotten really social on the internet in the last 5 years. Now I'm hanging out on Facebook and Twitter @aparentlee. Most of my job is done through email and that suits me just fine because editing my thoughts usually works out better. For a break in routine, the proverbial trip to the water cooler, the cursory glance into the next cubicle, I just login or refresh the page and catch up.

What started as a convenient way to journal and comment and search a world-wide library has led to interaction across the boundaries of time and distance. Much like my five-year-old self sitting on the concrete stoop in front of my small-town home, watching the world parading by, imagining the possibilities, five decades later, I've still got a perch.