What is a blog? How did I get here? Why Pickle with the Beast?

I have challenged myself to answer the two questions above; which are loaded questions with complex answers. I have been on your side of blogs until now. Seeking information on topics of interest. Seeking entertainment to avoid mowing the yard, doing my favorite house chores, or adding hours of activity to my phone usage. Or maybe I’m simply reading because it’s someone I personally know, much like you right now; for some unknown reason.

Growing up in the 90’s, yes the 1900’s, it’s very easy to say I was shaped by the culture of that time. Whether it’s from the hip phrases I still use, the sports teams I still follow, my “fashion” sense, the music I still listen to, etc. I am a walking product of the 90’s; proudly. I grew up watching some of the greats play basketball in the NBA (Magic, Bird, and Jordan) which drove me to the hardwood. Basketball was my first love, and really my first language; so take it easy on me here. The 90’s were the best! Everyone says that about the specific time period they grew up during. However, when I say it about the 90’s, you can take it to the bank.

I can remember in elementary school taking a computer class to learn operations, how to save information on a floppy disc, and some keyboard finger pecking. However, I was only concerned about playing The Oregon Trail and avoiding whopping cough. As I entered into high school prior to the 9/9/99 hysteria and Y2K, the internet had evolved. Look, don’t get me wrong, everyone was still on dialup so there was room for improvement. The very first experience I had with “blogs” were actually message boards.

Coming from a small town in western Kentucky of roughly 35,000 people, the county had seven original high schools which was consolidated into two high schools in 1991. By the time the 2000’s began, the rivalry between the two high schools was just as intense as ever. Most high schoolers were on the internet after school so they could be on MSN Messenger or ICQ to instant message with friends, downloading music on Limewire or Frostwire to burn CD’s, they were updating their top friends and profile song on MySpace, or they were anonymously leaving comments on Xanga about classmates to start some mess. I could be found online messaging friends while downloading music and playing Minesweeper like a maniac. But my go-to message board was Kentucky Preps. There you could zero in on our region and district to find random usernames stirring up trash talk about either school’s basketball team in our county. And I needed to read the comments to add fuel to the tank. I never posted anything, but knowing I had people talking noise about me and people backing me were enough to scratch the competitive itch.

After high school I was lucky enough to earn a scholarship to play basketball at a small NAIA college. As a non-traditional college freshman *cough* I was 23 years old- how bout you mind ya business what I did for five years! But I was able to learn a lot through that experience; mostly because Xanga, MySpace, and various message boards were going away. However, we had transitioned from Nokia phones with the green backlight which featured Snake to Motorola flip phones where extremely pixilated photos could be exchanged to the A-list celebrity favored Blackberry phones where an entire push keyboard was on the device. Little did we know that the iPhone era was on the verge of taking over.

Today, nearly everyone is packing around a phone where they have instant access to the World Wide Web to gain information at their will. Now, nearly everyone has gotten so much luckier because you will have access to this site where nonsense is at your fingertips. The goal is to publish random conversations that are had on a regular basis, but in a more open forum. And the conversations will be brought to you in the most ridiculous way possible. We will discuss things to stir up that pesky little “N” word that everyone loves to say in secret…Nostalgia. Pickle with the Beast is an ode to The Sandlot. Maybe one of us is more of a pickle while the other is more of a beast..? But it is such a great movie that has one liners that are still very recognizable and it does a great job of taking grown-ups back to their childhood. Whether the topics take you back or the most obscure detour full of throwback quotes get you there, the pickle is here to tickle! Hope you enjoy yourself while you’re here.