Green Like Gitgan

Wow. You’re actually reading this? I guess I ought to say something insightful about myself. I ought to have some insight as to the inner workings of me, seeing as how I am me.

I’m a graphic designer with a business degree in marketing and sales. I got the sales part by accident. Every job I’ve ever had has required me to do some type of design work and I very quickly realized that this was something I wanted to spend the majority of my time doing.

I’m a father of three, beautiful adopted children. That’s fairly recent - yes, all three at one time. No, I don’t know what we were thinking and I still don’t But, we’re having fun and so are the kids so it seems to be working out just fine. They’ve probably adjusted better than we have. Speaking of we… I’m also husband to Kirsten, who has her own blog right here on gitgan.com. She doesn’t use capital letters very often and she’s older than me. Just thought I’d mention that. We’ve been married for about 5 years now and to be honest, it’s getting better everyday. She’s definitely my better half.

I’ve been blogging for a while now and recently moved away from Blogger to Wordpress and I am really enjoying the freedom and expansiveness that this platform offers. I’m using the Hemingway Theme by Kyle Neath of Warpsire.com. I’ve done a little customization and I’m pretty happy with it. It’s a bit of a departure from my old blog, stored for posterity’s sake at gitgan.blogspot.com. It was a little noisy, the floating head was fun and it was a great place to start but it feels like home here in Wordpress.

I’ve been blogging since November of 2003. I didn’t do a whole lot with it way back then - in fact I really just played around with it until March of 2004. Then I started my on-again off-again relationship with my blog. I always struggled with wanting to share tidbits of information or neat links but didn’t want to have little posts. It’s some weird thing I have about blogging I guess. I like posts with girth. Like a Ballpark frank, I wanted my blog to plump when cooked. Or something like that. I think I’m over that but, even if I’m not, with the change to Wordpress I’ve got the asides category to help me along. That’s the little section in the bottom part of the blog where I can go link crazy or throw out one liners without feeling like I should write more.

I write this for a lot of reasons. It is an easy way to let my friends, who more and more often seem to be relocating to areas of the country that are not Northeast Ohio. It is a creative outlet, a place to say the stuff that I think is worth saying, or at least worth saying once. I try to entertain, and occasionally inspire others to mouth off as well. The biggest reason I do this - to quote Orwell from his essay ‘Why I Write‘ - Sheer Egoism:

“Sheer Egoism. Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on the grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc., etc. It is humbug to pretend this is not a motive, and a strong one. Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful businessmen — in short, with the whole top crust of humanity.”

I’m a blogger, not a writer and I’m not looking to change the world, but I do like entertaining my friends, family and myself on occasion.

That’s who I am, and why I write.

Thanks for reading.

Josh