Best of the Search 2005 - Part 1

Hello everybody. Welcome to the retrospective! This article will run down my favorite stories from January to June of 2005. I hope you have as much fun reading them as I did writing them.

January – January I was on a CCG Design kick. Mired in development of my own card game (which never took off, unfortunately), I finally moved this over the now-abandoned CCGBlog.com. I’d love to keep writing and working on this stuff, but I just don’t have the time right now.

Stories of note:

Newsporn – This was a great post to write and something I still refer to. It’s also creepy looking back at how right I was at forgetting the tsunami tragedy, and how our own New Orleans gave us another even more vicious, tragic bout of newsporn.

February – Almost out of the ‘CCG Design kick’ phase, some lingering posts still pontificated on set size and rarity distribution. Real hot-button blogging topics, I tell you. This month also saw the debut of Family Matters posts, a series that continues to this day.

Stories of note:

Actual Email – This was the beginning of the Herb Newton Saga.

March – Not a huge month for the ‘Search, but I did finally get rid of the CCG stuff that clung onto it like old moss. This month also marked the debut of my wife's blog.

Stories of note:

Everything Falls Apart – My humorous recounting of when a server stopped functioning.

When In Doubt, Overwhelm – I talk my way out of a sure-fire speeding ticket.

Concave Fence – A personal favorite of mine.

The Herb Newton Nissan Saga concluded with: Trademark Saga Continues and Final Notice

April – This month brought me some good fortune and a lot of angry people. It also marked the beginning of me putting lyric quotes at the bottom of each post.

Stories of note:

3 Years and Counting – Me and my wife are working on our 4th year of putting up with one another. I can’t wait for more years like these.

The Unbelievable Present – I got a shiny new (and unexpected) PSP. Worse? Until I got a new game for Christmas, I played that PSP more during April than I did May – December. Oh well, I still love it.

On the Brink – I move into my new office (complete with picture), explain my reasons for keeping my job out of my blog, and a very interesting discussion happens amongst old coworkers in the comments section.

Success – I win some cash playing a card game. Good times.

May – This month was when BlogNashville occurred. I got more “bloggery” as I wrote about blogging quite a bit. But other things happened too, luckily for you and me.

Stories of note:

The Comment Manifesto – Comments should always be enabled on blogs. Here I ranted about the lack of them on the Fellowship Church blog that was unfortunately shut down permanently in September.

I'm Only Sleeping – I have a terrible habit of oversleeping. Do you?

My Top 5 and Bottom 5 Feeds – This was linked to by the brilliant Doc Searls.

June – This is where my blogging began to truly get interesting, I think. I shed the old CCG ways, I shed the Herb Newton BS, I shed the chatter on old jobs. Instead I began writing short essays about things I felt important to me.

The Name Game – Did you know my first name is Jesse? This post details why I don’t use that name.

On Losing Faith – Why I’m no longer a Christian

Magical Phrases – Ever been in an argument you can’t win because you didn’t say the right thing? A funny post I wrote for (and about) my wife.

Coming Tuesday – Part 2 of the Best of the Search 2005 where we’ll cover the latter half of the year. Thanks for stopping by and reminiscing with me.

Tomorrow comes, sorrow becomes his soul mate
The damage is done, the prodigal son is too late