The Page Nobody Will Read

This is my first post. The purpose of this site is for me to post thoughts on random subjects, so it might not really be for general consumption. For all of those out there that aren't reading this, I'm going to call this site a journal instead of the more popular term, blog, because I'm like that. Of course, I am a bit late this party. My girlfriend has been blogging for years now. She currently maintains two blogs, her personal site plus a separate site dedicated to her hobby, cranking out delicious cupcakes.

The first step after deciding to start one of these things is to pick one of the various options available to bloggers. I read reviews of WordPress, TypePad, and LiveJournal. I even considered trying a bliki. I read comparisons between the different options, and being a novice, I discovered options that I didn't even know I needed. After my thorough investigation, I went with Blogger. Why did I chose Blogger? Well, I have a Google account. I was already logged into Google, so it was only a few clicks to get started. So there you go.

The next step is to pick a title and URL extension. Again, being late to the party, my options were limited. After trying several things, I settled on "justjimsplace" for the URL extension and "Jim's Place" for the title. Based on the fact that this site is basically for my sole use, I also considered various versions of "Page Nobody Reads". However, most variations around that theme were already taken, and some of those pages were quite depressing.

The source for my passed-over idea was a book I read awhile back, The Book Nobody Read by Dr. Owen Gingerich. The book to which the title refers is Copernicus' De revolutionibus orbium coelestium. De revolutionibus is one of the most important works in the history of science, right up there with Newton's Principia Mathematica which established the mathematics of calculus, and Darwin's Origin of Species which presented the theory of evolution. Copernicus's book is considered revolutionary (OK, pun intended) since it established the Sun and not the Earth as the center of the universe. However, the book wasn't considered to be widely studied or even read. Dr. Gingerich, a professor of science history and astronomy, set out to inspect as many of the existing first and second editions of De revolutionibus as he could track down. His investigations took several decades, and he found that despite the reputation of the book, a number of the remaining editions were extensively annotated.

Back to this site, other than random thoughts, I really don't know where I'm going with this. I don't plan on visiting 100 places before I die or preparing all the recipes in a cookbook (although trying 300 different beers sounds like a great idea). Don't expect posts on celebrities, celebrities' kids, celebrities' pets, or reality TV. I also won't be discussing friends, family or work since I don't think that would be particularly interesting. I'm sure I'll have more posts on books and science plus sports, movies, and who knows what else. With the NFL playoffs starting next weekend, the next topic will be my proposals for changing the NFL.