There was a time, around 2005, when I started this blog. Or well, I should say I started a blog at this URL [a distinction I'll fail to make coming up, on purpose, because it is needless]. Doug's Tea Blog. Actually, this blog dated back to 2004, when it was something like "Doug's Review Blog". Both versions of that blog were in contrast to my livejournal page [still going on, by the way, but more on that], which had personally oriented posts: my daily life and rants and whatnot. The review blog was a way that I could post reviews - first to movies and books and later to tea, and later still to other things - without crossing the two wires. Presumably, I thought that people would want one or the other.
As it morphed first into a tea review blog, which ran somewhat strongly for three or four months before a lack of new content dried it up, I made it more and more into a strangely little pocket home on the web. I got little feedback, though I had some, but it was a different sort of way of approaching my online persona. In order to stop the content from dying off altogether, I added in some other content. First books, then pipes [as in tobacco] and a tinge of commentary. It became a blog about reading books, and listening to quiet music, whole enjoying tea and pipesmoke. A quaint little bygone affair. Drifting around for a name, since presumably "Doug's Tea, Book, Pipesmoke, and Commentary Blog" would have been too long, I settled on Dickens of a Blog. It was partially me being cute, a play on words, and partially because it seemed natural that a tea-swilling, pipe-smoking, book-reading blogger would at least appreciate Dickens.
That format lasted for only about another six months, when I started my own website, which I will get to, and started killing off my other online portals. The blog at this spot and the LJ were morphed into one, which became the full and completed Dickens of a Blog. And it was all good, except a lot of people are unused, now, to visiting personal pages unless that personal page is attached to someone important, i.e. not me.
I eventually re-opened the livejournal account, and briefly had a Facebook and Myspace account re-activated, but the original DoaB was gone. I still had the Blogger account, via Google, but the old URL was no more.
Then, today, I decided to somewhat correct this. I cannot put the old posts backs, many are at my new website and the others are lost, but I can at least make this fond remembrance to it. Fair well, DoaB part one, part two - which has been the best thing I have ever done online, or at least the most fulfilling - is all due to you.
For those wishing to keep in touch, to see what I have been up to, I have set up the new Dickens of a Blog feed to the right, along with my Twitter and Delicious feeds. Or feel free to stop by http://www.wyrmis.com and pay me visit there. I still post about tea and books and pipesmoke and commentary, along with stuff about life and random movies and horror concepts and various other things.
About Me
- Doug Bolden
- I am a graduate student seeking a MLIS at the University of Alabama and working as a reference librarian at UAHuntsville's Salmon Library. I am a happily married man (to Sarah) the proud "father" of a cat (Cinderella). Rabid reader, horror geek, loves the classics and speculative fiction. I write poetry and sometimes games. Can program. Adore Linux. Smoke a pipe, but not that often. Drink tea, all sorts, and almost constantly. More beer than wine, more gin than vodka. More science than spirit. Politically, I'm not (anymore). About as solitary as I am allowed, but I love quiet time with friends.
