Maybe turning 50 has made me nostalgic, but I do miss the era of personal blogs. I never felt confident enough to do one of my own. But turning 50 has also helped me feel like I don't really have anything left to prove. Of course, I should have started this years ago anyway.
It was just this morning that I had the realization that I've spent most of my career as a tinkerer of sorts, just not with physical things. I've tinkered with writing books, being a lawyer, building cool things with students, designing new classes, and a variety of startups, and other things, many of which never went anywhere. I'm fortunate that I've had the opportunities as a professor to make a living doing that.
Having spent my career tinkering explains, I think, why I never really felt like I could hold myself out as an expert. Nothing I've done has ever gotten huge, at least nothing I can take much credit for. But reflecting on the aggregate of it all gives me more confidence that I might share something that's useful to someone.
So I expect this to be something like a tinkerer's journal. Lots of dead-end ideas, lots of curiosities, lots of things that have little to do with anything else, and hopefully some interesting and useful things, too.