Archived Weblog Entry - 06/20/2003: "The Upward Way Press is One Year Old This Weekend"

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06/20/2003 Archived Entry: "The Upward Way Press is One Year Old This Weekend"

Well, actually, the concept is a lot older by at least a decade. Once upon a time I wanted to do a newsletter with opinion, music reviews, exegesis, etc., all with a Christian slant. It wanted to be The Upward Way Press, but it was not to be.

Fast forward to one year ago. Hey, this weblog thing is pretty cool and I could do that! So I did. Up and got my own domain and found a host for it. Found Greymatter and learned a little about it. Polished up the HTML skills, such as they were. The Upward Way Press was born, a long time overdue. The mother (me) was glad the birth finally happened because it was getting difficult to maneuver around the furniture.

It is different than the concept of ten years ago. Then I was deep in the contemporary Christian music scene. Today I don't listen to much of it because it has become insipid. So no music reviews, just the occasional reference to Eminem or Fifty Cent or Weird Al Yankovic.

I never expected to be a disseminator of family and church pictures, but I have gladly become that. I have plenty of disk quota, since weblogs themselves are pretty much just text. Glad to be of service to the family.

I have brought my lists of links over from my previous website. If you do a Google search for "rmcrob" you will find me all over the web being linked to as a source for Biblical Studies information. I'm still into Biblical studies, but my studying has become more practical than ever in the year I have had this weblog. I teach a Sunday School class of young adults and a small group of mixed ages, so most of my study time is spent in preparation for those responsibilities. I'm probably getting a little rusty on my Greek, but I'm able to keep my hand in it a little bit. Logos and Libronix make it easy to do the Greek stuff without remembering as much anyway.

I also have brought over three sets of Bible study questions (for Ephesians, Philippians, and James) that I wrote myself, mostly in the cauldron of a weekly Bible discussion with a very challenging group of serious Bible students. I don't know if anyone really notices those anymore. I used to get frequent notes about people using my material in Bible studies at work, in church, even at home, but I don't get notes like that anymore. Maybe I need to make that material more noticeable. They are good questions.

The experiment with the bookstore (a front end to Amazon with a small commission for any sales generated) is a failure and will go away at the next site redesign. There have been very few click-throughs and no sales. It was worth a shot.

I did expect to do more in the way of book reviews on my weblog, but I really don't have much time for reading these days. I spend three hours a day commuting, so I listen to NPR and rap music rather than reading. That will change one day. Maybe good book reviews would have generated a few sales (see above). Now we will never know.

Anyway, I have enjoyed this first year. Still trying to find my voice, probably. I am probably more humble than I was a year ago, and I'm proud of that. Just kidding. And I certainly have made lots of new friends. Most of the folks in my blogroll to the right I have had some kind of personal contact with. I don't agree with everything they say, but I'm proud to be associated with them.

I have discovered that it doesn't take much to set off a firestorm. I have discovered that cynicism doesn't play well in the long term, even if it is effective in the short term. I have discovered that it is easy to seem to be saying things you never intended to say. I have discovered that some days it is easy to write and some days it isn't. I have discovered that if you don't have anything interesting to say for a few days, the hits go down. I have discovered that people can find your website with some very weird searches. I have discovered that some people will put anything in a comment and not even blush.

This is fun. I hope it is occasionally helpful.

Replies: 3 comments

Have a very happy blogday!

Posted by Richard @ 06/20/2003 02:22 PM EST

Happy blogday Randy!

Posted by Jonathan @ 06/21/2003 10:18 AM EST

Proud to be associated with you too, Randy! And certainly it is helpful :)

Happy blog birthday to you!!

Posted by irene @ 06/22/2003 10:46 AM EST

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