Today marks 2 years of frangipani.info.
Well, actually, I had started on the site a little bit before I bought the domain and server space. The first pages (when I knew I had the job in Japan) were done in dreamweaver and the templates changed and evolved constantly as I taught myself HTML, CSS and all the little tricks of the trade. I was lucky I lived in the Japanese country side for so long, it gave me a great chance to study I.T. I finally got fed up with manually archiving my "newspages" and signed up with movable type in September last year and started to get comfortable with that painful word "blog".
The gallery has evolved also from a laborious manual process to the slightly ugly and clunky (but supremely time-efficient) gallery program. It now hosts 82 individual albums and 2696 photos (many of which will really really have to get deleted now that I only have 3 MG left). The gallery is what generates the most traffic these days, and also generates most of the interesting emails.
I think the evolution of a personal website is an interesting process. I for one spent a great deal of time being a little daunted by the fact that so many strangers were checking out the site and so I stopped writing so personally, and became deliberately vague and oblique, almost never posting photos of myself or friends. But I'm getting over that self consciousness now, and have also managed to lose the painfully dutiful urge to post almost daily. Whether or not that has anything to do with my over-full work schedule or not, I don't know. I still do enjoy a good hour or two every few days checking up on my fave sites but overall, I am way less 'net oriented these days. A healthy thing, I think.
The 2 years that this blog has documented have most certainly been the most intense years of my life - ranging from the most happy, peaceful and relaxed (when I first moved to Fujiyoshida) to the most stressed I've ever been (when I moved to Tokyo). This year especially has been the hardest year of my life and I look forward to Jan 1 2005 so I can close this hard chapter. But I do love Japan and have settled into a bit of a groove here in Tokyo. I think I'll be sticking around for a while yet. The potential opportunities here are just too good to deny. I just have to cut down my work schedule - which I'll probably be doing when I get back from my vacation in Dec/Jan. Next year will be *MY* year. Photography courses, an exhibition, a site redesign and some exciting project collaborations.
Anyway, thanks to the 112 695 individual visitors who made 193 727 visits (approx 1.77 visits per visitor) for taking the time to check out the site, looking at my photos, offering me feedback, advice and support. You all rock big time. As do the team at Earthfirst, my hosting company, for offering such great tech support and being so liberal with my allocated bandwidth allowance....
A few weeks ago, I got my thousandth comment. It was to the entry Beautiful Folk. I had made the decision a while ago to offer a special gift to the 1000th commenter, so I was so extremely happy to find that the gift would be going to a long time visitor, Don Simons. Don, I will be bringing you a large sized framed print when I go to Brisbane next month for my holiday. Please let me know what your favourite photo is! This one?
Finally, I'd also like to say Happy Birthday to Mum for the 14th of November. This year is the first time I have forgotten her birthday. It's been 6 years since she died. She's often on my mind. But she wasn't on the 14th (I was distracted by the design festa) and I feel kinda bad. Anyways, Happy Birthday Mum. I had a drink for/with you, I hope you don't mind it was a day late. It would have been your 67th bithday.
frangipani wrote this on November 19, 2004 02:13 AM