Why do I blog?

     This week the main idea of the blog is not unique.  Frankly I was reading another blog and the blogger had chosen this topic himself last week, and I thought that a column on what motivates me to blog might make for an interesting piece.  So I admit that I outright stole the idea, but the content is uniquely mine.  I still say that I am doing better than to re-do movies that were only shot 20-30 years ago.  Don't believe me?  Feel free to rent Arthur with Dudley Moore (1981) and Arthur with Russell Brand (2011) and I'm sure I will be vindicated. 

This blogger with his biggest fan

     I blog for ego.  Let's get it right out there first.  Artists put their paintings up in museums and galleries for others to enjoy, actors strut their stuff upon stages and sound sets, musicians in concert halls and performing arts centers, all for others to enjoy and to get the ego boost from someone else liking what they do.  I am no different, although some would see me as more vain than most actors, I appreciate when people choose to spend time reading my blog, and when they do gain enjoyment from it, it feeds my ego.  As an attention getting mechanism this one is pretty subtle as you have to follow a link to go read it (I used to stand up and sing uninvited at weddings, be glad you missed that)  It's cheap, it costs me nothing more than my own free time. It's as advertised, right up front, I declare that this blog is about me and my life, and on days like today, I'm dead on (incidentally, I'd be surprised if better than 70% of my blogs don't contain the word "I" in the title), so I blog for ego.

     I blog for my cat.  Nibbler has a favorite pet in the house, and clearly it is not me.  If my wife and I are in the same room together, Nibbler will generally choose to spend time on her lap rather than mine, but not at

Nibble getting into my gin

4:00-4:30 am as I write these blogs, that time is solely mine.  Nibbler also chooses to only randomly attack my wife's face too (it happened last night and it never stops being funny, she lays on the floor, she crouches down, with her ears back and dives directly at my wife's face), so there is a trade off to being the favorite.  I don't understand the love/hate thing with her and the cat, but I'll take being second banana in the house and not having to be on guard all the time for a flying leap to the face.  Most of these columns, however, are written with a cat on my lap, so I blog for my cat. 

    I blog for my family.  My immediate family gave me the idea for the blog, they do like my family stories, and asked for me to document them, and so I have.  For over two years now, I've mixed the stories of growing up with my siblings in amongst the other

My folks

blogs, like salt over a good steak.  I can only tell them from my perspective, but by allowing comments, I also have invited siblings and others to correct my bad memory or historical inaccuracies. I'm not sure how my siblings all take the blog, it's probably like me in real life, some enjoy my company and others just tolerate me, but I'm OK with that, that's the nature of relationships sometimes and just growing up together doesn't mean that you'll  all turn out the same.  When I do stop writing, I'll likely pay to have these blogs bound in a book and give them to each of my children. In that way, when they visit me in the nursing home, they'll have reference material to keep up on what memory I'm stuck on that day, and can help me through it.  I wish my Mom and Dad had blogged, they had better stories than I do, but I've forgotten more of them than I remember, so I want to leave a more permanent record behind, so I blog for my family.

     I blog for you, the reader.   For a guy that doesn't spend a lot of time dwelling on the feelings of others, I do spend a lot of time thinking about how my blogs might affect the reader each time.  If I'm doing a travel

Roseland Park

blog, I want to point you to a few great places that you might not discover on your own with a limited time and travel budget.  All the travel blogs that I have written, I've had multiple visits to those cities and picked what I have perceived to be the best or most interesting places.  Some blogs are meant to be nostalgic and to invoke certain memories, like my blog on my old boss, Papa Frank, or the one on Roseland, Evans Field or Caruso's Lakeshore House.  On my more inspirational blogs that I've written, I tell stories of the people that I've met like the one shoe lady, the kidney recipient, the man who found my Christmas tree or the crying woman at LaGuardia airport.  I tell these to remind you that we all have the opportunity to give back and that there are people that do it each and every day, as a habit.  I try to share topical current news stories that may have been buried on the back pages of newspapers and that I think should have gotten more attention.  Lastly, I write my humorous blogs to give you a lift on Tuesday mornings.  My heaviest traffic hours are right after sun-up each Tuesday until about noon.  I like to think that I've been responsible, a few times, for a few people, starting their days in better moods, so I blog for you, the reader. 

     I blog for myself.  You may have thought that I covered this in the first paragraph, but you shouldn't be surprised that I'm starting and finishing this blog with a paragraph about me.  This blog makes no income, there is no deadline that is not self-imposed, content is not edited or influenced except by me, so it allows me

a freedom and creativity that my job, my volunteering, or my home life does not offer.  It's a healthy way to vent about my frustrations, and it keeps me disciplined to keep up on my writing and reading skills.  If you were wondering, I do read other blogs.  I currently follow, on an irregular basis, one on life in Alaska, a struggle with weight loss, an inspirational topical one, one on a trip teaching Kripalu yoga, one on local food, a teacher's musings, and several others that pop up and go away.  A lot of people start blogs and after a month or two, leave them behind.  I'm in for the long haul myself and will continue to publish, until I've got nothing worthy left to say.  Feel free to tell me when I get to that point, cuz after all, I blog for ego.