Happy Birthday

   Birthdays bode different ways for me. My brother died on his birthday, my father died on his birthday, and my grandfather died on his birthday, so, needless to say, I will tread lightly this day. But, my brother died when he was 8, my father died when he was 58, and my grandfather died when he was 68 and today, I have no "8" appearing anywhere, so there's a degree, be it small, of safety.

   Even so, for me, birthdays have been a time to change. Today, I will leave Facebook. Why? Simply because I have never even liked Facebook. I have better things to do than to know that twenty or thirty "friends" who I have no idea who they are, are now "friends" with twenty or thirty other people I don't know. I learned long ago that a "friend" is much more than some name on a computer and I will never be able to measure anything, or at least anything worth having, by how many names appear on some list. Plus, I am simply not the googly-eyed eighteen year old that Facebook was contrived for.  

   And today, my web page will change. When http://www.danweatherington.com/ was first created, I had written two books. Now, that number is eight with two more in the works, a far cry from those first days. Of course, nothing will ever replace the first time I held real book with my name as author and the first time I saw my name on Amazon.com. It was... something second only to when my books appeared on Barnes & Noble.com. To me, Barnes & Noble was the ultimate. Their stores were clean, bright, and a shining example of what a book store should be. And, one day, my book and my name appeared on its web page. Yes, silly as it may sound. I wanted to cry. 

    Just as it appears that ebooks will replace the bound volume, this blog at http://danweatherington.blogspot.com/ may replace my web page. And, like I still cling to the printed book because I like the feel, the warmth and even the smell. I will cling to my first web page simply... because it was the first.

Have a great day, I will,

Dan