Everyone is familiar with the christening of a ship: the tradition dating back to ancient Greek times of blessing a new vessel with water, blood or wine. Recent history sees a bottle of champagne smashed against the bow of a nearly-launched vessel to wish her and her crew good luck and godspeed.

I am proud to christen my blog and finally set sail. But, we’re about 5 years late. I’ve bought, renewed, renewed again and finally passed on at least 2 domain names whose purposes were to be independent titles of my personal website, but never the less, I am excited and to some extent relieved that we’ve finally made it. Many of my friends can attest to my old domain name honeyroasted.ca, which was ‘coming soon’ for about 3 years.

Blogs are wonderful tools for self-exploration and for sharing thoughts. They are not diaries; in fact they are quite the opposite. Blogs require that their authors face scrutiny, and to estimate what portion of themselves they are prepared to share with the world. They force their proprietors to practice self-confidence and self-control. They harden and round people. At least that’s what I think they do.

The focus of this blog will vary. For now, I am using it as an exercise to better understand myself by writing and focusing on the micro, while the macro goes flying by, as it always does. I am going to challenge myself to develop and critique my own thoughts, perspectives and values. And somewhere along the way I am going to share my experiences, because life is too wonderful to be constantly looking back or reliving the past, so it is useful to archive those times here.

I’d rather drink a bottle of champagne than smash it against my computer, so cheers, good luck and godspeed. See you here again soon.