When I began blogging in 2002, I ran an emo webzine called Wimpkiller. It was the online continuation of a paperzine my friend DadBeard and I did in high school. There I chronicled my unemployment, employment, unemployment, three years spent in Japan, and more. The site had an active Phorum BBS (later converted to Vanilla). It was my own private Facebook, before there was Facebook and MySpace.

I learned a fuckton about web development—the hard way—from those years managing that site; hacks, spam, DDoS, hotlinking, trolls, server topples, database erros, etc. I cut my teeth and logged my 10,000 hours on that site over its five year existence. Blogging and hacking on that small website gave birth to my current career.

I learned a lot about community too. The unexpected result of a website I started in my twenties is that nearly all my closest friends in my thirties were active on Wimpkiller. That’s the intangible result of blogging: connectedness.

Happily, I can say that I haven’t stopped shipping content and ideas, they’re just in different silos now:

• Chris Coyier—who is really disciplined at blogging—and I shipped 50 episodes of ShopTalk last year and we’re currently on episode 60.
• The ATX Web Show has rebounded with 18 episodes in the last 6 or so months.
• The A11Y Project has ~15 short and easy articles with more on the way.
• I’ve also had the opportunity to write for NetMag and A List Apart.
• Speaking at conferences has been a great way to get ideas out and I secretly enjoy powerpoint.

However, I’ve neglected my breakfast table. So my pledge is this: I have a folder filled with an unfortunate amount of half-baked ideas and I’ll do my damnedest to share some of those “big ideas” and put the tutorials on the backburner.