So I’m writing a blog. How many bloggers started out by writing a post about starting a blog? Well, now it’s that number plus one.
Hi! I’m Nate. I have a family, I own a business, I play guitar, and I’m going to write about whatever I want.
I’m actually a bit more complicated than that, but if I keep writing this thing and you keep reading it, you’ll get to know me over time.
First up: naming the blog. Over the years, I've become fond of saying, “the name is the hardest part.” I say it a lot. Usually when someone is trying to come up with a name for something. But sometimes I say it to myself when it’s totally irrelevant - I don’t know why.
<computer sciency stuff> When I was still a web developer, before I became a manager, way before I (hopefully) became a blogger… I often told junior programmers that if they couldn’t come up with a good name for a class, it might be an indication that they need to rethink the class itself. If you’re creating a class that makes sense in your architecture, you ought to be able to come up with a name that makes sense. I have no idea if this is good advice (hint: it’s probably not), but at least I had something to say that sounded like it might be wise, right? Anyway, a few years ago someone pointed me at this quote, which is attributed to someone, but I’m having a hard time figuring out who said it first. I saw it on a tweet from Jeff Atwood: “There are two hard things in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors.” I laughed when I heard it; whoever said it first is even more clever than I am.</computer sciency stuff>
So here are some of the blog names I considered: Nate vs. the world, Nate meets the world, a man a plan a blog, noodlbrain, thinking out loud, minding my own business… There are more. Most of them are lame, many of them are already taken.
Incidentally, my band is also in the process of trying to come up with a name. That’s not going well. Why? Same reasons - most of the names we come up with are lame. And most of the good ones are taken, usually by a band in Missouri. This is one of the biggest problems with the internet - back in the day, you could name your band whatever you wanted, and you’d have no idea there was already a band in Missouri that had the same name. So you could just go play music around town, blissfully ignorant, until one day you realize that you have to change your name to The Grateful Dead, or Pink Floyd.
More than 10 years ago, my partners and I had to name our business. Also difficult, but we did eventually come up with a name. And as it turns out, almost nobody can pronounce it or spell it correctly.
And just a few short years before that, my wife and I managed to name our son. In what appears now to be a growing trend, we of course picked a name that most people can’t pronounce or spell correctly.
So now I have some ground rules for my blog name: it must be difficult to spell and pronounce… Aha! “Noodlbrain” fits half of that. When I was a kid, I had to choose a name for a character in a video game. I don’t remember the game, it was on my Mac (the very first one, with the handle on top, before they called it the Mac Classic) or maybe even on my Apple II+ (I’m old enough now that childhood memories are spotty at best). Anyway, for some reason I no longer remember, I tried to use the name “Noodlebrain.” But the game only allowed me to use a name with 10 characters or less, so I had to drop a letter or come up with an entirely different name (and by now, you may be getting a sense of how easy I think it is to come up with a new name), and I ended up with “Noodlbrain.” I reuse that name still, from time to time, for various things.
But for the blog, I’m just not connecting with it.
My wife and I recently bought a motorhome. This is way out of character for us, but we did it anyway. And it’s relevant to what I’m currently writing only because my wife said the motorhome needs to have a name. I rejected a few of her suggestions (of course, because naming things is hard), and right now, we’re calling it Junebug, and we both like it. Our son does not.
Circling back around, I think I found a name for my blog: “I hate cheesecake”
Remember when I said you’d get to know me if I kept writing and you kept reading? Well, here’s one of the big ones: I hate cheesecake. For real. I consider it to be my mortal enemy. "Well," you're thinking, "you haven't tried MY cheesecake!" Correct, I have not. And no, I do not want to try your cheesecake.
How long should a blog post be, anyway? I have no idea.