I first found myself in the blogosphere in October 2004, when I discovered Seraphic Secret...and boy, am I glad I did. Learning about Robert's family's ordeal and great loss opened my eyes to someone's personal story made public.
I'd scan Robert's list of favorite blogs too and began to read some of them, too. That's how I discovered Treppenwitz, and A Simple Jew. And from those blogs I discovered Jack's Shack, PsychoToddler, Kerckhoff Coffeehouse, NY's Funniest Rabbi, Mirty, Elie's Expositions, Life of Rubin and several others.
And in December 2004, I took the plunge and became a blogger too. And eventually, I had three blogging gigs. Okay, I've let up on the other two quite a bit, but I still have access to them.
I began to write posts, and continued to read others', finding new blogs on other peoples' blogrolls. I came upon some fabulous blogs later in my blogging career -- Jew Eat Yet?, Citizen of the Month, Ezzie, Oriyenta, OldOldLadyoftheHills, Shalom from Jerusalem, to name but a few -- just by reading others' blogrolls.
I don't update my blogroll too often because even if I don't read someone regularly anymore, I take a peek every now and again to see how and what they're doing in their life and in their blogging corner.
So this post is just meant to be a shout-out to bloggers whose paths have crossed mine -- both in real time and virtually. You don't realize how big or small an impact you've made on my life, but you truly have. With your words on your blog, and sometimes in my comments, you've made me laugh, cry, think, understand or question. Sometimes we've even taken our comments offline and into our email InBox.
And you've made me write, and write, and write....
Thank you. Todah rabah. Merci. Gracias. Danke.