Welcome.

It’s the third day after deleting my Instagram accounts and deactivating my Facebook, and I can tell the withdrawals are gonna come slowly. That’s OK, I was expecting it.

Morning alarm goes off on my phone, I turn it off, and… well, that’s about it. Maybe check the news and stocks. Delete a few emails.

No more lurking around FB and IG first thing for *this* guy (visualize me pointing both thumbs at my chest). Or second thing. Or last thing.

So, I’ve decided to do away with social media…and then start a blog. Because I’ve lost my mind, right? I’ve had a mental breakdown and reverted to a pre-MySpace, blogging-era utopia, right? Just absolutely pining for 2002 all over again, right? (see title above)

Sorta. I’m an IT guy, right? I even operate my very own IT Services business (www.myintegritech.com, by way of introduction). So my slender fingers are involved in tech All. Day. Long. It starts to get to you, ya know? Not to mention having, like, over a hundred different accounts to over a hundred different websites for ALL the things, both personal and business. Not to mention how tired I’m getting of being notified that my accounts may have been hacked because the service I was using was too big a target, or their security sucked. So I started eliminating things.

Not long ago, I read Edward Snowden’s book “Permanent Record”. It really opened my bleary eyes to how *available* our personal data has become to gigantic, too-big-to-hold-accountable corporations or government entities that want to make financial or nefarious use of it.

*Then* I watched the Netflix documentary “The Social Dilemma”. Holy moly, if that doesn’t give you pause, I don’t know what will.

Lastly, I read testimonies of those who took the reverse-plunge out of social media, and the vast majority reported their increased happiness, mental well-being, and freedom to chase after other life goals.

So this is me right now. I stepped out of the social media kiddie pool, shook off my feet, and started walking around the sunlit grassy yard. I deleted my private and public Instagram accounts, and deactivated my Facebook account.

Truth be told, it’s not like I was obsessive of social media. I had slowly decreased by social media activity over the years. I rarely posted anything on IG or FB anymore: mostly happy birthday posts, a comment here or there on a friend’s post, or the occasional promotion of something I was doing creatively.

But it was time.

Time to stop giving Facebook the means with which to sell my digital soul to the highest bidder. It’s become a lot less about connecting people these days, and a lot more about connecting people to advertisers and content that is algorithmically catered to our basest desires. Social media companies have gotten so *good* at emotional manipulation (such manipulation is at the heart of marketing, after all), it’s scary. Hence, the astronomically-heightened phenomenon of bad information proliferating throughout the connected world. And I don’t want to be another “node” in that self-destructing network.

So here I am. Starting a blog. Honestly, it’s probably just the very thing that’s been needed to give me a swift kick in the arse to *write write write* more. And that is not a bad thing at all.

People change. And that’s a damn good thing.

Back in 2018, I released a self-published children’s book about music and drumming called “Darci the Drummer: Takes Drum Lessons”:

It’s about a girl named Darci who passionately wants to be a great drummer, and she makes a LOT of noise banging around on pots and pans and everything in between (much to the chagrin of her brother Danny), but she isn’t sure how to get started on that path to actually knowing how to play the drums. So, her parents surprise her with drum lessons!

It was available on Amazon for a good long while, but I’ve since taken the book off the market due to costs. However, if you’re in the Portland, OR area, stop by Music Millennium at 3158 E. Burnside and you might be able to grab your very own copy! And of course, I also have a limited number of copies here in Bakersfield, CA available for sale for $10.00 each.

Who knows? If there’s enough interest again down the road, perhaps I’ll give the book another go on Amazon! Check back here periodically for any updated news on that front. And in the meantime, I’m also working on other children’s stories that may one day catch the eye of a publisher or three… I’ll certainly update this page if anything like that happens, have no fear!

Whether a short story, random thought, song lyric, script, or the start of a book, I’ll occasionally post my writings or writing project links here. Feel free to comment or Contact Me to find out more, or to engage my writing services for your project!