Hello World!

I’ve been blogging in one form or another since 2005, most of which on the WordPress platform, hence the traditional WP title of the first post on a new blog. My very first blog was about the TV show LOST where I wrote superfluously long theories about what I thought was going on the island. None of which turned out to be correct.

I’ve even dabbled a bit in fan fiction for a while, and decided that it would be best to move on to other things once I started to ponder what the Harry Potter books would be like from the perspective of Crookshanks the cat.

My friend and WordPress guru Lorelle VanFossen told me as I started my first food blog to just write. Never mind about what the page looks like, just focus on the content – so I did.

Then in 2009, I was asked to do my first paid writing gig for Metromix Honolulu. That led to more gigs with Metromix, and then eventually with Nonstop Honolulu, Hawaii Food & Wine Festival, Frolic Hawaii, and even for a while, official photographer the the Governor of Hawaii. I got to attend concerts for free, eat great food made by top chefs, travel, and witness some amazing events. It was a fun ride for a few years, then I started to want something more intellectually, so I stopped and didn’t write anything for almost all of 2016.

As a blogger, I created a persona, and my posts were filled with content that said, “look at me.” As a result, whenever I would meet people who read my blogs, they would talk about all the cool stuff they would see me do, however would really know nothing about me, what I stood for, or what I believed in. The posts that I felt best about were those in which I took a stand on a given issue. It required thought, and most of all, the conviction to put it out there  and say, “this is what I believe in!” Not surprisingly, those were always the posts that a lot of readers gravitated towards.

The opportunity arose to join other digital refugees on Hawaii IRL, or as I like to refer to it, “Parkrat’s Home for Wayward Bloggers.” It would enable me to focus on content without having to worry about the bells and whistles of running a site.

My mind has been buzzing lately with ideas that I want need to get out. Therefore, I’ve decided that it is time to take the emphasis off what I am doing, and use this venue to focus on what I am thinking.

This is the Culinary Mind.