Reaching a Milestone and the Origins of Pete Chat

What you might be asking does Pete Chat have to do with a movie I've never seen? Well besides being a show case for fantastic abs, this is my 300th post. 

During the summer of 2004 I got a new job working at  the BYU Office of Information Technology. During the summer we would have days with a lot of down time. Sometimes one phone call in four hours. That meant plenty of time to study, but in reality it meant a lot of time to search the interweb. A guy I trained with Andrew Tang, told me about a website where you could make your own blog. I'm pretty sure I didn't know what a blog was. But seeing as I had ready virtually every myth on Snopes, there was no Facebook and you can only check ESPN so many times a day, I made a blog called Pete Chat. I updated once, and didn't look at it for another year. I did one post in 2005. In 2006 I visited my friend Seth and he told me that blogging was "in" or something, and I started to do small post, just a picture and few words to remember things that had happened in my life. In 2006 my sister Jennifer started her blog, and it inspired me to write a little more often.

But the thing that really made me love Pete Chat was the comments. I loved having a creative outlet for my writing, that while I was writing for work, it was rarely creative, and rarely my thoughts (my new job is even worse in that regard) and Pete Chat was just the place. I'd write about events, people in my life, my joys and sorrows. I've had a running feature on and off for a few years called Monday Haiku, I always put the last book I read even if it's nerdy. I've written cryptically about my relationships, and I've been thrilled to find out that certain people are reading. in 2007 I blogged 96 times. 90 in 2008. 2009 was not a great year, I just didn't feel like I had much that was noteworthy and I only updated 60 times. This post will be the 39th in 2010.

I occasionally have an existential crisis on who this blog is for, me or the readers. As far as I can remember I have only censored myself once, when a photo I put up was not appreciated. Mostly people I know comment on my posts, and I'm always thrilled when they do. My sister Chrissi only comments when she is specifically mentioned. 

Sometimes I will put a lot of effort in to a post and get almost no reaction. The most comments I ever received was for my post about the girls I've chased.

Some of my favorite posts are.

Trip to Palymrya - Found my voice

The Grand Gesture- It's always fun to discuss relationship philosophies

Prince Charming Blast-Got ranty here

Angels vs. Orioles - A very thorough narrative of an amazing evening.

Sports Bigamy- Defending that which is undefendable

Inauguration-Demonstrates that I am in fact a very good writer.

The Wedding -Sometimes these things just write themselves.

Scranton Parade - A typical road trip post

I often say besides playing QB in Flag Football, regularly maintaining a blog is at the top of the "harder than it looks" list. Sometimes inspiration comes and it's easy, and other times I think, what am I possibly going to write about this time. But for better or worse I post.

You probably don't know how much it means to me when I hear, things like "I found your blog, it's a good read." or "Peter, you're a really good writer." 

Thanks for reading, keep commenting, and if you want to do a guest post sometime let me know.