The Nate Way turns three today. It seems like only yesterday that we started this thing. Back then I was asking PIC Owner Court Sullivan questions like, “What’s a blog?” and “Is this legal?” and “You don’t have an extra computer, do you?” And now, here we are precisely three years later. Since we started, I’ve been through more than thirty girls, two computers and 5,475 mixed drinks. It’s been a long time.
When I first started here, I hated the word, blog. When people would ask me how my blogging was going, I wanted to jam pencils into their eyes. “I’m not just some blogger, asshole.” I would say. “I’m an internet columnist.”
A few years later and I just don’t care what you call me, so long as I make supper on time.
Three years ago, I wasn’t exactly sure what I’d be writing about. I was torn between making this a sports blog or a comedy blog or even an informative blog. After a careful three minutes of drunken deliberation, I concluded that I was too dumb to do an educational blog and that sports were vastly overrated and the sports fan vastly over-served by the internet medium. The snippet fan, however, was definitely under-represented on the internet. So I decided to keep things true to life and try to have fun with it. If sports were to be here, it would only because sports were a part of my life at the time. If I was to do something informative, it would only be because I just learned it. In short, I just decided to tap the keys about my life and see how you people liked it.
Then something happened. A few months into the whole blogging thing and I realized that I needed this. The instant gratification that comes from writing a blog is similar to the gratification that comes from wowing people with a good story. Blogging was like writing but with an instant and sometimes very explosive reaction from the readers. I was hooked.
And so some things came and went over the years. The snippets stuck around forever because, well they were just good. They were also one of the reasons Court gave me a blog in the first place and they were well-received. So I rolled with that.
Observation style pieces came about a little later, mainly because Monday is both my deadline for my column and my busiest work day so I didn’t want to have to think about a topic. I could just muse about what I had learned from the past week and run in a few candid snapshot style jokes, drop a logic and fluidity reference, and move back to the business of more important things. Oddly enough, for the brief period that I took away the observations pieces, my blog started to suck. It wasn’t that the observation pieces were that good, it was just that flushing the previous week out of my system in that random style cleared my head for the rest of the week’s funny. I am a weird motherfucker. Ain’t no lie.
So what’s the future of this blog? Will there be more investment pieces? Possibly. More stories of romance and my pending legal troubles? Definitely. More love for the St. Louis Cardinals and hatred for all things censorship? Count on it.
Basically, it’ll just be more of the same. Chop wood, carry water, live an enjoyable life and try to write in an enjoyable way. And hopefully you’ll keep reading. Hopefully, you’ll continue to find my folly and foibles, my ego and obnoxiousness, my drinking and my loving as awesome as I do.
It’s been three years people. And I am not on pace to graduate on time.