So whats an appropriate excuse for not posting in almost three years?

I’ll admit that I knew going into this that I was eventually going to go off the rails. I didn’t think it would go so far off the rails that it couldn’t see the rails anymore.  I think I did pretty good really, at least for me. In hindsight, it may have been foolish to try and start this a matter of months before a major life change. When I started this project, I thought writing would be much faster. But that didn’t account for the stalls. Like that last sentence, it reads:

“…major life change. When I started…”.

But typing it was more like:

“…major life change. {stare at screen for 6 minutes}{check facebook}{stare at screen for 3 minutes}{flip record over on turntable}{check facebook again}{stare at screen for 8 minutes} When I started…”.

I have things to do, and it got pretty easy to say no to spending hours starting at a cursor. It got easier still as time went on and the amount of crap I had to write about piled up. Sometimes it feels like writing about stuff takes longer then doing the stuff I’m writing about.

So at the risk of taking for-freaking-ever here’s a synopsis of the last three years:

  • bought a church
  • sold a house
  • moved into apartment
  • renovated church
  • moved into church
  • hosted some concerts
  • got sick of taking pictures
  • photographed a music conference
  • got excited about taking pictures
  • found out my father was ill
  • got a dog
  • traveled to Sudbury and back (7 hours each way) every weekend for several months
  • lost my father
  • hosted some more concerts
  • got excited about audio recording
  • got sick of taking pictures
  • photographed a music conference
  • got excited about taking pictures
  • got sick of audio recording
  • got excited about audio recording
  • realized I haven’t looked at my website in three years
  • figured out how to recover my password on my website
  • wrote this

So that’s it in a nutshell. I’d like to get this thing back up and running. I think I may make some changes to it; hopefully that keeps me feeling like I want to put things on it.

Less Rules:

Initially I thought that having a schedule of what to post when would keep me posting, but it apparently didn’t work. I’m going to throw the whole music Monday/wallpaper Wednesday/Photographer Friday out the window. If only because the alliteration makes me uncomfortable.

I’m still going to post wallpapers, write about music and profile photographers that inspire me; I’m just going to do it whenever I want.

More Things:

It occurs to me that I am more than a photographer. I do a lot of things. I like a lot of stuff. I should talk about that stuff. Maybe I review my favourite video games, old or new (my thoughts on Minesweeper: an essay?). Maybe I talk about a board game we are playing or best record of the year (but by best record I mean best record I found at the antique store one town over). Maybe I’ll talk about feelings. All the feelings.

Whatever.

“Rebranding”:

You may have noticed that I changed the logo on the main page (unless all the views of the page are mine, in which case, yes I did – good job on the new logo Mike). I have been thinking of going, artistically at least, by my full name. Michael Stanley Bourgeault. That got me thinking of my initials. MSB.

When I was studying audio engineering, we learned the structure of digital audio data, including the concept of the most significant bit. I’ve always liked the term, I like the initials, and I kinda like my name.

Stanley is my maternal grandfather’s name; his love of music helped to inspire mine. His record collection is often my photo editing soundtrack.

My last name reminds me of my father; his inventiveness and tinkering nature inspired me to be who I am.

The term itself, “most significant bit”, relates to how much time I spend with digital things, audio, photos, computers and such.

Not only that, but I think it’s a pretty spot-on description for what photography is supposed to be; capturing that significant moment.

Plus it sounds kind of British. At least I always hear it in my head in a British accent.

Also, I “designed” the new logo, tried it out, then realized I had accidentally deleted the original logo. I have backups, but I can’t seem to find them. So I guess it is good that I like the new logo.

Well, that’s all I’ll bore you with for now. We’ll see how it goes.