Why?

I usually do things for a reason, but in the case of this blog, I'm not sure why I'm doing it. I'm kind of excited about it... I get to talk about anything I want. Sometimes it'll be stream of consciousness type writing. Other times I'll write essays. I always enjoyed writing essays. But it doesn't really explain why I'm looking forward to writing. Probably just because it will allow me to talk about things that are important to me. Or maybe it's something else that I'll figure out as I go.

Some of the most important things in my life are: my wife and daughter (I'll write a lot about both of them), my church (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints; aka Mormon), my political beliefs (staunch libertarian), building things (I love to build), my job (computer programmer and systems administrator), etc.

We'll see where it goes.

Maybe I'll start by saying where the title of my blog comes from. I've been called "The Date Man" on a couple of occasions, and I kind of liked it. It doesn't refer to the number of girls I've gone out with. It refers to a program I wrote (and continue to modify) called Date::Manip. It's a perl module... and unless you are a perl programmer, this probably means nothing to you, and is not very interesting.

One of the fundamental things about me is that I am an engineer. I like to build things. I "build" computer programs. I "build" meals (I like to cook). I enjoy carpentry and metal working and have gotten to build a number of things. Some might think that writing a computer program, cooking a meal, and building a shelf are three completely different things, but I get almost the exact same enjoyment out of them.

In each type of building, I look forward to building something "grand" or especially meaningful. Although I've written a number of computer programs, Date::Manip stands out as one of my most important. So when I was called "The Date Man", it was definitely a compliment. Anyway, it came to mind when I was starting this blog, and it stuck.

But don't worry... I'm not going to go into any details about writing computer programs (at least, I don't think I will). I can just see it. An essay entitled "The inner workings of a computer programmer's mind". I realize that it would be thrilling, but you'll probably just have to do without.

Anyway, more later...