Hello Everyone,
Welcome to my blog! About 30 some years ago I was perusing my parents bookshelf and ran across a copy of Bartlett’s Book of Quotations. To put it simply I was mesmerized by what I found when I opened the book…the collected distilled bits of wisdom since the beginning of recorded history all at my fingertips in a format that meshed well with my 13 year-old attention span.
I quickly realized that there was gold in dem der hills and started mining the wisdom represented by the sentences, phrases and anecdotes triple indexed in that book.
Flash forward 20 some years, and I am sitting in a cubicle at an insurance company that specializes in insuring credit unions (and yes it was as dull and miserable as it sounds), and I am desperately searching for a way to infuse meaning in my days and entertain myself and hopefully others. At the same time I am beginning to toy with the idea of writing as a profession and think a good way to start is by making it my hobby.
And so my technically challenged career as a writer begins, and I start by collecting quotes I admire on various topics from various sources and put together my spin or commentary on said quotes and send them via email to a group of friends and family I believe will enjoy reading them.
Anyway… I don’t know exactly where this will lead (which makes it all the more fun) but I thought I would repost some of those initial e-mails and then keep it rolling with new entries. If you enjoy these posts, pass them on to friends who you think will enjoy them too, and we will see where it leads together!
Posted below is my first blast e0mail from August 18, 2005:
Date: Thursday – August 18, 2005 2:19 PM
Subject: Food for thought
Hello All,
Just for fun I started a “quote of the day” on my dry erase board at work, which I update every day or so (I know the board should say “quote of the every day or so” – but it takes up too much room). Anyway, since I currently work in a cubicle, these quotes are seen by very few people.
I have always enjoyed quotations since they are usually from interesting sources, and boil profound thoughts down to a few key phrases, so I thought I would broadcast them to a wider audience for your enjoyment and/or discussion.
If you don’t want to get future e-mails on this just let me know and I will drop you from the list.
Today’s quote is:
“Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep insights can be winnowed from deep nonsense.” – Carl Sagan
Discuss amongst yourselves.