Here we go!

Well, I’ve been trying to do this blog thing for almost 10 years, but just never had the time (or so I told myself.) There are a couple of reason I can use to “justify” my delays and neither of them are very good reasons:

• Procrastination: This is just a copout because this is just a matter of prioritization. When I want to do something, it gets done and on time. But I always seemed to find something that was more important that taking the time to set up a blog
• Unrealistic expectations: As a software developer, I love working in many areas, but web-based development has become my main focus over the last 5-6 years. While I certainly know how to build a website, I don’t consider myself a very good web designer and have always doubted my ability to create this “amazing” website that would show the world what a great developer I was.

While I have known for a while that neither of those excuses were valid, I let my inner voices convince me that I wasn’t ready. (Did I just admit to having multiple inner voices? Oh my!)

Most of my work has been in the SharePoint space and my absolute favorite part of that space is community. SharePoint people, especially those in the MVP community and those that work on community events are some of the best people in the world. At this point in my career, attending conferences is less about content and more about learning from these amazing professionals about not just what they do, but how they do it. While I am not shy, I am an introvert, so hanging out or speaking in front of large crowds is just not something that comes natural to me, but with the encouragement of my beautiful wife and a core group of the SharePoint community, I now love doing both.

Back to my excuses, starting with unrealistic expectations. Part of my weekly routine is scouring blog posts to keep up with the latest announcements and developments in the technologies I love. So I have seen every level of web design, some of which are truly amazing. And I’ve seen the other end of the spectrum too (I won’t name names, but you know who you are!) So while I don’t expect to set the world on fire with my design, I think I can try to mimic some of the better designs, but still make this my own. Ultimately, I have been told that a lot of tech bloggers start, not as a way to educate others, but just as a way to record how they managed to work through tougher issues. Their blog is basically a nice way to be able to find previous solutions in one place. And I could definitely use that, so there is no reason to procrastinate any longer.

I’ll keep this short, but I am looking forward to this journey. If you are reading this, then I guess you’re trying to decide if you want to go on this journey together. If you do, you can expect to see a mix of content here. Most of it will be focused on development topics, hopefully with some helpful tips on how to build solutions in SharePoint, Web technologies, Azure, databases. Along the way, we may wander into some non-tech areas and I might even share some of my past experiences as an Air Force pilot over a 20 year career.

Stay tuned!