In which this website would be in fifth grade now, if it were human.
GOBLINBOX.COM is nine years old today.
It’s been on at least seven different servers. It’s been hand-coded, it’s been run on Movabletype and WordPress. It’s had ten different forums. There have been as many as eight different databases at a time. There have been innumerable themes and color schemes and layouts.
It has suffered multiple crashes and some pretty significant data loss. There are sub-folders filled with broken image galleries. I’ve been asked to remove material a half a dozen times by both friends and employers. It’s been hacked twice, it’s been served take-down orders thrice, and it nearly got me sued once.
At its peak, it was getting ten thousand unique hits each month (now it gets about 2k), was spidered, indexed, and botted within an inch of its life, and it used upwards of 90% of the server’s total bandwidth.
It has been the cause of my learning FrontPage, HTML, Dreamweaver, graphic design and slicing, CSS, DNS, PHP, server security, MySQL, legal crap, and a lot of social crap.
I’ve written here about tech, work, sci-fi, gadgets, books, media, death, sex, miscarriage, love, divorce, travel, loss, weather, panic and anxiety, surgery, spirituality, film photography, knitting, and music – and there are even some pretty good recipes.
I’ve learned that some people will bitch at me for writing about them, and that other people will bitch at me for not writing about them. I’ve learned that there’s an awful lot of stuff I can’t write about, but that I can still somehow manage to convey what I need to convey.
Friends and family keep up with me through this website. I’ve made lots of new friends through this website. Some of them are old friends now, some of them dropped off the Internet, some of them I now know in real life.
Many of the blogs I’ve followed over the years are gone now. People are always announcing sabbaticals, or deleting their sites, or drifting away quietly. I’ve never announced a break, and never even felt the desire to do so. I love this website, and I really mean it when I say Here’s to another nine years!
When I’ve needed it most, I’ve received tremendous love and support here, and I truly cherish that. Thank you, all who come to visit, each and every one of you, old or new. I mean it. Even if you don’t comment.
If you want, you can take a trip with me down memory lane and look at the Internet archive entries. Remember when the site was orange? When it was purple? Those crazy Xmas themes I used to build? Hah!
GOBLINBOX.COM is nine years old today. Nine! Nine.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
Happy Birthday, Goblinbox!
Yay! -m
Wow. Did you start blogging before the Intartubez even began?
Happy 9th Birthday 🙂 I look forward to many more years of teh ‘box.
*smooches*
I did! *smooches* -m
Happy blogiversary!
T’anks! -m
Congratumalations! LOL, I think my blog is one of those that have drifted in and out, but you rock this blog, rock it inside out!
Thank you, dear! -m
Happy birthday Goblinbox! I always love your writing M, even when you are down or confused or whatever, your honesty is inspiring and your experiences are relatable. Glad to hear you are up for another nine!
Thank you. Nine more years! -m
Have I really hosted it that long? There must be some space there where I wasn’t hosting, yeah?
Yeah. It was on about four Cobalt RAQ servers when I worked at LISCO. They actually still host DNS to this day. *blush* -m
OK: the Wayback Machine shows me that for at least the first 3-4 years it was on that carppy LISCO machine. And then there was Liz’s server, which I had to bail on after she flipped the bozo bit. But it’s been on my machines since at least 2005, woot!
I love you. -m
Happy B’day G’box! I’ve really enjoyed reading you over the years. Your mistress is a pretty smart lady.
Aww. -m
Happy blogsary!!! I’m glad we got to meet in person when you came down to DC. I took out the ‘kris’ in the URL since there was someone reading my blog that I didn’t want to any longer…
Muwah!
*mwah!* -m
Wow.
I’ve never done anything for 9 years running.
Congratulations!
Naughty~
I know, right? That’s why it’s such an accomplishment. The only thing I’ve done longer than goblinbox is live with Bindu. Well, and sing. -m
9 is a good age. Happy, hopeful 9th to you!
Thanks! -m
I almost forgot to congratulate you on 9 years. Damn, that means you’ve been… well anyway perhaps not the dawn of time, but close enough.
Thanks! Many, many CPU cycles, certainly. -m
9 years. OK, we can calculate what that is in dog-years. But in terms of internet-years — well isn’t that almost half the age of the universe?
Love to you, and thanks for living out-loud.
Thank you. Love you! -m