tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33396792427367944292007-12-12T00:22:27.395-08:00ShannonBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3339679242736794429.post-38899591903947089162007-12-11T23:28:00.000-08:002007-12-11T23:54:30.623-08:00Hi everyone! How nice of you to drop by.<br /><br />"What," you may ask, "are you doing here?"<br /><br />Well, I am, to a certain extent, a writer.<br /><br />At first glance, I do not appear to have pursued writing in any meaningful way at all as either a career or a hobby before this moment.... That is because I haven't. Actually, my only two "meaningful" forays into writing were the 11-page fantasy novel I wrote at age 10 and a series of creative e-mails home during my Peace Corps service in Guatemala.<br /><br />However, despite my apparent lack of "qualifications," per se, I have always enjoyed writing, especially the kind of writing that involves short, pithy commentary. I always have thought I'd make an excellent columnist, in tone somewhere between the styles of my two columnist-idols, <a href="http://www.davebarry.com/">Dave Barry</a> and <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/carroll/archive/">Jon Carroll</a>.<br /><br />So, considering that a blog is really a sort of modern-day column (that has the added bonus of having no requirement of previous experience) I have decided to start posting my thoughts for the world to see. Ideally, what I write will be insightful, fascinating, and laugh-inducing to the point that all of you will tell your friends about it, I will become an Internet phenomenon, the book of my collected columns will become an international bestseller, and Erick and I will be able to retire to a farm with all our assorted menagerie to live happily ever after.<br /><br />That's the plan, anyhow.<br /><br />We'll see how it goes.Shannon