Why this blog exists

I don’t know much about my family’s history. Not the big-picture stuff, the small stuff: what my grandparents worried about at my age, what they thought they’d become, what they turned out to be wrong about. Nobody wrote it down. I feel that gap more than I expected to, and I don’t want it to repeat.

So this is the fix. Not a memoir, nothing that organized. Notes. Things I’d want Flora to have, and whoever comes after her, from the years when I was still figuring most of it out. Some of it will be about software, because that’s what I do all day. Most of it won’t. I’m putting it in public because then I have to finish the sentence.

I also have a horrible memory. I’d like to say I’ll be around to tell her all of this in person, and I plan to be, but I’ll have forgotten half of it by then. Writing it down is cheaper than trusting myself.

There’s a selfish reason too. I believe in data. In ten years I want to look back at what I was thinking now and see what actually produced the person I became. Weeks go slowly, months go slowly, years disappear. Until a year ago I didn’t smoke cigars, didn’t dress the way I dress, didn’t think the way I think. If that keeps happening, and I hope it does, I want the older versions on record.

I think this will end up worth more than anything financial I could leave behind. That’s the bet, anyway.