Technical Writer?

Hello again, old friend.
Y’know it’s amazing, but I almost feel like tearing up every time I sit before Blogger’s ‘New Post’ interface and begin to type. You see, this blog really holds a special place in my heart, although you’d hardly know that by how often I post here.

Anymore, it seems whenever I go into the Blogger post editor (which has certainly changed since 2004 — but not all that much) it’s kinda like seeing an old friend with whom you share a warm, yet long-distance relationship. Every time you see each other, the memories of good times; the way you supported each other; the way you completed each other — the emotions all come flooding back.

Then, after spending a little time together, you say, “Man, this has been great. We really need to get together more often.”

Nonetheless, before long you find yourself continuing on with your busy life, never quite breaking away from the now-hardened habits that took you away from your old friend in the first place.

Then, the realization; that for me, I’ve found a new friend — two, really. I write for a paycheck now, as a technical writer at a local software company, and in my spare time I write another blog about hockey, and my local NHL team, the Nashville Predators.

Both circumstances have been a tremendous blessing to me and have provided a great deal of satisfaction to me as a wordsmith.

I've even gone so far as to finally launch my own domain, ajinnashville.com. I've moved my free Wordpress.com-hosted hockey blog there, and originally intended to do the same with AYBABTU. In fact, that was the original intent of this post, to announce the fact that this space was moving.

But now, after looking deeply into the eyes of my dear old friend for the first time in months, I’m not so sure. I’m gonna have to weigh the pros and cons. We’ll have to see. Aside from the sentimental value and longstanding loyalty I feel for Blogger, there is a more practical reason for me to leave AYBABTU in place. I’m rather proud to say (and was totally shocked when I discovered it recently) that I now occupy the #1 Google search position for the term, ‘personal blogger’ and I’m not real sure I want to risk the possible surrender of that with a move to a new domain.

The advantages of moving the hockey blog made it a no-brainer. While I still do it purely for my own enjoyment, I'm now being approached by sponsors and want to take whatever opportunity reasonable to at least make a little dough from blogging (although I sincerely doubt it will ever be more than chump change). At any rate, it was necessary to move away from a fixed platform to a self-hosted circumstance to really take full advantage of sponsorship opportunities and requirements, so I finally went ahead and made the leap.

I'll need to do some research on the ‘google juice’ aspect of a potential redirection from blogspot.com to ajinnashville.com, but my initial thought is that while I may at some point create a second, more narrowly-themed personal blog on my new domain, I’ll likely just leave this one be.

Not that I expect a whole lot of SEO geeks will be reading this post, but if there are, and you’d be kind enough to weigh in with an opinion on what the best way for me to go would be, I’d certainly appreciate it.

Re: The Awkward Pause
As far as the future of this blog is concerned, as always, I have nothing but the best of intentions. I have a backlog of story ideas, including a number of ‘Unfinished Business’ stories left that I’m doggedly determined to complete and back-post.

I am not finished with you, my old friend. Somehow, some way, I’ll make the time. We’ll remember the old stories, as well as the ones that have yet to be told.

...And we’ll get together then, yeah. Ya know we’ll have a good time then.


finis