New Old Post — Welcome to my blog

Originally posted in 2010

Welcome to my ‘new and improved’ website — www.gordoncooper.com 2.0.

I got this URL (www.gordoncooper.com) after moving from Atlanta to Silicon Valley for a job promotion. I wrote a daily web update as my sister and I drove from New York to San Jose. My intention for the site was to keep family and friends that I left on the East Coast updated on my activities out West. I was only supposed to be in California for a year. Which turned into two. Which turned into a lifetime commitment when I met and married my wife.

When I started, I learned HTML and used an early version of Dreamweaver to create and maintain the site. At least monthly I would post new photos to the site or some travel writings from my business trips. I kept the site updated through my marriage and the birth of my two sons. It wasn’t until the mid-2000s that I pulled the entire site down after learning that some undesirables (pedophile types) were linking to pictures of my young sons. I have to admit that until that point I had thought my friends who didn’t want any pictures of their children on the web were being a bit paranoid. Turns out I wasn’t being paranoid enough. Feeling creeped out, I removed all the content from the site and left a cryptic Hmmm… in the middle of a blank screen. As in “Hmmm… what to do with this URL?”

In the meantime, I focused my efforts elsewhere. I raised my sons, kept busy traveling for business, started a small publishing company as a hobby. I didn’t ignore the web altogether. I created one website for my High School reunions (www.wghs1983.com) and another for the books that I’d published (www.prestonwoods.com) including my own first book Watkins Glen Tour Guide — completed in part because I found myself unexpectedly unemployed compliments of the great recession of 2009. Now it is 2010 and with a new job and the mobile power of my new iPhone at my command, I thought I might resurrect this URL that has languished for years now.

In 2010, the idea of going back to writing in HTML code seems both old fashioned and horribly time consuming. Facebook can accomplish what I had set out to do in 1997 — updating my friends and family from far away — while providing more control over whose eyes can see images of my children. Why should I even bother with a website? I could give up the URL and be happy with my rare Facebook updates. Still, I feel the need to express myself in ways that Facebook doesn’t fulfill.

One of my favorite quotes/speeches came from movie director Steven Soderbergh who won the Oscar for Traffic at the 2001 Oscars. He had been to the podium earlier in the night (if memory serves me correctly) for Erin Brockovich. Anyway, in this second acceptance speech, he had the luxury of  forgoing the typical list of thank yous and instead chose to thank ‘anyone who creates.’

His words struck a nerve. I really identified with being a person who wanted to create things. Surprising perhaps as I am an engineer and we’re notoriously ‘left-brained’ and analytical types. (Want to figure out if you’re right or left brain dominant? Here’s a quiz). It wasn’t long after this that I fully embraced my need to create and started writing Watkins Glen Tour Guide. My career has evolved since 2001 from engineering to marketing which better feeds my need for creative outlets.

Finally, now, we come to the reason for creating a blog on my long dormant URL: It is a creative outlet for my thoughts and writings. Although blogs have been around for awhile, I like the idea of having the option to use iPhone instead of my computer to write a blog entry. My iPhone is always in my pocket so whether I’m in an airport or hotel room or in front of the television in my living room, I should be able to tap out an entry when the muse strikes. I expect to be writing about what interests me which would be travel, writing, and raising kids with some random observations thrown in for good measure. The question is how often will the muse strike? Ah, that is a good question. Stay tuned.