A toe in the blogosphere

I'd been mulling over the idea of setting up a blog to record thoughts and experiences on our US roadtrip for some time. I sounded some people out on it - 'I'm thinking about setting up a blog when I go to America - keep people in the loop about what we're doing; post some photos; perhaps make some philosophical remarks about the state of the United States...'.

'Yes', said everyone, 'great idea - I'd read it'.

Well. That's everyone except Al.

'What do you want to do that for?'.

Good question. I'm not on Facebook, Bebo, SecondLife or any of the others - sounds like licenced stalking to me (though Tom and Hazel's idea of a Facebook page for my parents' chickens does sound ace). But Web 2.0/ social networking holds a strange thrall for me. I think it's the egocentric appeal of thinking that someone else might possibly be interested in your life, your universe, and everything.

So here's why:

1. Given that we're taking 8 weeks out of the rat race to fulfil a dream of a US road trip, I want to keep a journal (however sporadic) of our travels.
2. There's quite a lot to talk about with the States - the political climate (no pun intended), the 'cultural' references (is it really like the movies?), the people (more naive/ fat/ optimistic than us Brits?), the landscape (I'm sure often forgotten amongst everything else)
3. Maybe people will stop suggesting I join Facebook (though I note I haven't had any invites to be anyones friend. Humph)

So, blogosphere. Show me what you've got. Will anyone ever read this? Who knows. The great joy is, it doesn't matter. At least it fulfils objective 1.

Anyway, already I can see there is a great temptation to ramble on a blog. So I'll stop now. Hopefully further posts will be a bit more interesting, as they should happen when my feet are firmly on US soil and my fingers firmly on a US keyboard.

So long for now.

PS my one secret mission is to get Al to do a posting on this blog. My hopes are slim - he's a stubborn old bastard - but watch this space.