BlogSwap: How Blogging Has Impacted My Life

It's the day for the promised BlogSwap, so we have a guest writer here today: Danny Ferguson of Danny's Blog Cabin. Danny describes his blog as a chronicle of "the life and times of a geeky youth minister". Today he tells us how blogging has impacted his life.

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I made my first blog post on May 30, 2003, and over the last year I think blogging has taught me a lot. I started out on Live Journal, which was great for me since it was very simple to use. In January I moved to a Movable Type blog hosted by my friend. That gave me much more control over what my weblog looked like and how it worked. My favorite change has been the Recent Comments section of my side bar. Now that I can easily see what posts are being commented on, we have kept some discussions alive. Moving to Brendoman.com was also cool because I was part of a close-knit community. Most of us had some things in common, like our faith and our geekiness, yet there is a lot of diversity among Team Brendo. I've learned how to have civil discussions about religion and politics. I've made new friends. I've kept in touch with old ones. My blog has given me a place to express myself, to vent. But I've also learned that anyone can read it, so I can't say just anything. I would tend to keep my head in the sand, getting my news from The Daily Show on Comedy Central if at all, but blogging has helped me to stay up to date when it comes to news, politics and tech. The best tool I've found for that is Bloglines.com. Since I've posted about it before, I won't bore you with it now except to say that Bloglines is how I get most of my information from the web. So, to sum up, blogging has brought me new friends, helped me be a better friend, provided an outlet for my creative energy and frustration, and kept me informed.

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Would you like to BlogSwap? For more information visit http://www.challies.com/archives/000392.php.

My entry in this week's BlogSwap is here at Challies.com.