The real first entry

I'm David Braverman, and this is my blog.

It's likely that the world already has too many blogs. I hesitated starting one for many years, mostly because I didn't see the point. Who would want to read my self-absorbed navel-gazing semi-literate drivel? I mean, other than my mom?

What's this about?

I'm interested in too many things to confine this to one topic, no matter how self-absorbed it gets. So look forward to entries, at least one daily, on these topics:

• The weather. I've operated a weather website for more than seven years. That site deals with raw data and objective observations. The blog will add some interpretation, from travelogue to actual meterology.
• Anne. For reasons that passeth understanding, she married me, and now she's the most important part of my life. (She'd be first in the topics list except that I wanted a clever acronym—which she supplied, by the way.)
• Software. I own a small software company in Evanston, Illinois, and I have some experience writing software. I see a lot of code, and since I often get called in to projects in crisis, I see a lot of bad code. If you want to learn something about software development, this blog might be useful to you.
• Politics. Ask almost anyone in the world to summarize my political beliefs, and he'll probably say "moderate-left". Since I'm American, and this is 2005, that means I seem like a radical-pinko-leftie to my neighbors. I'll have more to say about this as the blog progresses. At this writing a hair more than 1,164 days remain in the Dubya presidency, so I have plenty of time.

This is public writing, too, so I hope to maintain a standard of literacy (i.e., spelling, grammar, and diction) and fluidity of prose that makes you want to keep reading.

I will not write much about my personal life. It's just not that interesting unless you're already part of it. If you want salacious details, there are many other blogs out there.

So why do this?

In the true spirit of blogging, I started this for a couple of totally self-absorbed reasons:

• To pontificate on subjects about which I know little;
• To get into the habit of writing every day, which my father (an Emmy-nominated professional writer) says is a good thing; and
• To provide some usable content for people interested in one or more of my topics.

Two things pushed me into starting this. First, I read Jakob Nielsen's article about blog usability, and second, my wife Anne got into the National Novel Writing Month spirit.

So, nu?

Keep reading, and send me comments.