Archive for September, 2003

The Joys of Blogging

Sep 1st

Posted by David Veksler in [...]

No comments

Going along with the theme of my previous post, I would like to review the progress of this blog, and perhaps inspire some of my readers to start their own (and feed my already super-sized ego.) I started blogging 16 months ago to improve my writing, thinking, and web-design skills. 595 entries later, the blog has been far more successful than I expected. My literary abilities still need much improvement, but there have been many tangible results. Traffic has grown from nil to 2155 unique hits and 5364 visits this August. Google and Blogshares count 75 and 44 links to my homepage, respectively. When the value of incoming links is measured, my site is in the 644th place (with .0082% marketshare) among the Blogshares top-valued blogs, placing it in the top 1% of blogs by any standard. The success of my homepage has inspired me to start several other sites, and several people to start their own blogs, some of which may soon outpace mine in traffic. Many of my sites are growing at near-exponential rates, which makes me excited for the future and worried about how much it will cost me to host everything.

Although I blog primarily for myself, I appreciate all the tips and comments I get. My fall schedule will allow me little time to read the news and surf the blogosphere, so I’ll be even more dependent on your submissions. To help my marketing efforts and test my new polling script, please let me know how you came across my site.

The first day of the rest of my life…

Sep 1st

Posted by David Veksler in [...]

7 comments

Tomorrow, I start my first full-time semester in grad school and my first “serious” job. I don’t consider these events very important in themselves, but in a way, tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life. Unlike my liberal arts education, the classes and the job I have now are aimed at preparing me for my future vocation and formerly tentative musing about my future have been replaced by a clear focus on where I want to be, and what I must do to get there.

During the four years of my undergraduate education, I went through a process of intellectual discovery and application of my knowledge to my values and goals. I think that skipping the usual “rebellious teen” phase made my exposure to the vast variety of influences on campus more earnest and open-minded. For good and bad, my passion for ideas took me from one group to another as I sought to find people who shared my view of the world. For various periods, I was a webmaster of the Aggie Democrats, my corps outfit, the Aggie Libertarians, the Aggie Review, and then the Objectivist Club. I saw the consequences of corrupt philosophies firsthand and I finally found one that made sense. I am just beginning to integrate my philosophy with my life; and while the details have yet to be filled in, I am certain of my values and of my goals. I know who I am and what I want to become. In the words of Ayn Rand, I am “a being of self-made soul.”

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