Back to Blogging: Two Decades in the Making

In the early 2000s, I stumbled into blogging almost by accident. I was attending the JavaOne conference when I sat in on a small demo for this new tool called Blogger. It felt magical. Suddenly, anyone could write, publish, and share their thoughts on their own little corner of the web. Back then, Blogger even let you publish directly to your own hosting server. Not long after, Google acquired them, and the internet as we knew it started shifting.

That first blog unlocked something for me. I moved on to running WordPress on my own Linux server, tweaking themes late into the night, and eventually spinning up my very first Amazon EC2 instance in 2008. That was my first real leap into the cloud, leaving behind the dedicated ISP-hosted servers I’d used for years. Blogging became more than just publishing posts — it was my way of sharing what I’d learned, capturing experiments, and connecting with people who were just as curious as I was.

For a while, it worked. I met incredible folks. I learned from others. I had fun.

Then life shifted. I joined a company that… let’s just say… wasn’t exactly thrilled about employees having a public voice online. I stopped writing. And honestly, I’ve missed it ever since.

Fast forward to today, and I’ve decided to come back. Blogging again feels like reclaiming an old creative outlet — a chance to write, share, and connect without overthinking it. No perfect cadence, no grand plan. Just ideas, reflections, and things I’m excited about.

Will I keep this up for a week, a month, or another decade? I have no idea. But here’s to finding out.

Welcome back, old friend.