Upcoming Things

 This is a short post today just to give an idea of what we are going to be discussing for probably the remainder of this year, as there are a couple of important topics I want to explore.  Creating a lot of information with a personal touch has been the overall dynamic of what I do here, and have been for approximately 16 years now.  While I originally started this blog as a sort of creative outlet for just random thoughts, I can see how it has evolved over the years to include a variety of topics ranging from political and religious trends, to memory exploration, and to specific ideas.  And although I don't make them available for mass markets, I also do print all of the blogs for each year into their own books at the end of the year, usually meaning that the last blog post for a given year is mid-December (there are exceptions to that, such as this year's book when I compile it, given I had two other posts post-publication of the previous year).  If anyone reading this is interested in obtaining those, feel free to send me a message and I can tell you how to get them.   At this time, there are eleven volumes of them, and this year will be twelve once it is published.  I do these as a sort of "yearbook" of my work, and it makes them look good on a shelf.  Let me talk about how that evolved in a moment.

Back in 2013, I was starting to preserve physical copies of my articles, and did so by essentially printing them out and first putting them into sheet protectors and three-ring binders, and then later using my GBC to comb-bind them.  That in all honesty did not look good, and the volumes were clumsy and not as easy to access.  When I published my first book in 2014, an idea hit me - why couldn't I create bound blog books each year too?  When I compiled the first of these at the beginning of 2015, it consisted of two large volumes of over 500 pages each, as I was essentially compiling 5 years worth of articles at that point.  However, I was impressed overall with the way they turned out, as my self-publishing service, Lulu, does good work with binding and everything.  From that point, I made a commitment to print these out every year and have them in bound volumes, and they varied by years - for instance, the 2019 book was tiny, as was the one for the years 2020-2022, as I didn't write as much then.  However, the books for 2023-2025 were massive, as I tended to write a lot more then.  I also had the idea in the earlier volumes to include things from my old Bebo page and my early Facebook notes, both of which were earlier attempts before I was able to set up this Blogspot site.  The articles contained in those date back as far as at least 2006, and while they were not as extensive they did provide a sort of picture of how I was evolving as a blogger. And, that leads me to talk about a few things relative to this too.

Most of us recall the earliest days of social media.  For the most part, before Facebook became a thing sometime around 2007, the major social media site was called MySpace.  Many older people (I doubt the Gen Z crowd will) probably remember those early MySpace days.  I never liked MySpace personally, so I never actually had a MySpace account, but it had competition even back in the day.  One of the less-traveled competitors of MySpace was a similar site called Bebo, and I did have a Bebo account for a number of years - I signed up with that back in 2005, and used it as a sort of impromptu writing platform once I became more familiar with it.   In many ways, Bebo was essentially a MySpace knockoff, but more people my age used it because to me and some others I had talked to then, MySpace was more or less a place for teenage girls and effete metrosexual guys to hang out, and it just had little interest from me - I feel the same about TikTok now, as I don't have a TikTok either and am not too enthusiastic to get one.  But then 2008 came, and Facebook made its appearance on the cyberstage, and it appealed to everyone.  I was invited by a dear friend to sign up for it then, and I did.  That was about 18 years ago, and I am still fairly active on Facebook even today.   Upon entering the Facebook universe, I discovered their "Notes" feature then (I think they may still have that, but am not sure) - so, as part of my active presence, I started doing weekly "Notes" on that, and continued to do so until about two years later when I found out I could actually have a true blog site, which is how I ended up here.  So, I have about 2 years or so of Facebook "Notes" that I may or may not have published in a blog book yet, so I will have to go back and check that.  If not, I may give them a separate book with the Bebo posts, and that will constitute a prequel to this blog.  This is actually a good time to be talking about this, as I have just hit my 16th year anniversary publishing blogs like this, and I am very appreciative to Blogspot for allowing me to do so.  While I haven't gotten a huge amount of traffic (I can count my actual followers here on my fingertips), I do occasionally get nice messages and notes from people and those are always appreciated.  I have had the occasional trouble though - last year, a disgruntled Fundie who I evaluated took issue and almost cost me my teaching position, but thankfully the school administration saw beyond it and it blew over.  I suppose when you put yourself out there in the public square, there will always be a malicious pigeon that wants to crap on the monument of your achievement, but you just wash the crap off and continue on.  There is a good life lesson in that somewhere I have to revisit too. 

This blog was actually the second of three I had started back in early 2010, as Barbara encouraged me then to use online opportunities as a resource to get my own word out as a sort of ministry or something, and that is how the first blog, Sacramental Present Truths, began.  Some months later, I started this blog, which originally had the stupid name of "The Creative Side of David" before I finally changed it to "David's Mountain Memories."  When you are trying to think of a title of something, it pays to sound it out first before settling, because in a pinch you can come up with some idiotic names and people notice that.  "The Creative Side of David" made me sound more like a metrosexual hippie, and it really wasn't me, so I am glad I did change it eventually.  The URL for it though has not changed, but no one will notice that anyway so I don't worry about it.  The food blog "From David's Kitchen," came shortly after, and the end result of that is my cookbook I just published a couple of months ago.  As cooking and trying to immortalize some of my favorite (and least-favorite in a couple of cases) restaurants made up a substantial interest of its own, I wanted at the time a separate platform for that.  However, as the years commenced, it became clear that it was more practical to combine everything into one blog, and since this one had the most activity, it was the one I decided to continue by integrating SPT first in 2022, and at the end of this year I am also merging the food/restaurant blog into this one as well.  Starting next year, this will be my sole publishing platform, although I am going to leave the other two sites up for archival purposes in case anyone needs to access them.  And, that means I have a short word to say about the blog's future before moving forward.

I have essentially decided to close the blog on my 60th birthday, which is in 3 years.  So, I will continue to write and add content regularly for another couple of years, and on December 31, 2029, we will say farewell to it.  In this next three years, I have some more in-depth topics to explore, and that will start with what I plan on rounding this year out with.

For upcoming articles here, I am planning on doing a more deep-dive commentary into dream interpretation from a Catholic perspective, as I have a couple of books to peruse as well as some other important material.  I want to do something on this because in recent years dream interpretation has become more of an interest, but it is also dominated by occultists, Jungian psychology, and hyper-Pentecostals.  Based on the fact that I believe dreams are nothing to dismiss as well as also wanting to present a sound Christian perspective, I want to give my thoughts on what I am reading as well as giving some basic ideas for people who may be pondering the question as to whether their own dreams have meaning.  I will be writing that in the next couple of weeks.  The other article is also very entailed, and it has to do with some Georgian writers I find interesting, including one of my favorite authors named Konstantin Gamsakhurdia as well as the work of Ilia Chavchavadze.  These are writers that most American and European people have heard little about, but they have some profound ideas they communicate in their works.  So, at some point in October we are going to explore them as well.  I have a vested interest in the nation of Georgia as well, and feel that it is a mission to help more Americans appreciate Georgian literature (and the beautiful polyphonic singing they are noted for as well, not to mention their food - I love khatchapuri, although without the raw egg!).  As one of the oldest Christian nations in the world, Georgia is integral to me to know more about, and thankfully here in Baltimore we do have a good Georgian restaurant (I reviewed it last year too on my food blog).  That gives you an idea of what I will be exploring as this year begins to wind down, so stay tuned.

Anyway, that is a quick catch-up of everything, so will see you next time!