The Frog Bog

I decided to start this blog in around September of 2006. My wife got a job just outside NYC, and since she represents the lion’s share of our income (actually, she represents probably 2 1/2 lions and an ocelot), and the last time she was looking for a job in her industry in the bay area it was a tough time for her, and this job sort of fell in her lap, it seemed a good move for us. I love playing music and teaching music, and I miss my students very much. But I would be less happy having my students and my San Francisco burritos but not being with Beth. Without a doubt. Although, the super carne asada burrito from The Crazy Taco on Mission is one mean burrito, and their selection of homemade salsas is formidable, and washing that fabulous fare down with one of their freshly squeezed aqua frescas is certainly without culinary parallel… um… no, no. I’d rather be with Beth.

So I thought I’d start a website where I could just write whatever I wanted to whenever I wanted to, since I knew I would be jobless upon arriving in New Jersey, wasn’t sure I wanted to put the time and effort into establishing a new student clientele, and figured I needed something marginally more meaningful to occupy my time than playing Civilization IV (which is probably the coolest game ever).

At night during September, after I was done carefully bubble wrapping and neatly packing Beth’s belongings, and mashing my stuff into piles and taping the piles together (Beth was already in NJ), I would go online and read blogs. Serious blogs, funny blogs, political blogs, blogs that are more sort of portals that lead to stories or pictures or whatever the blogger(s) will think their audience will find entertaining, diary blogs, etc.

I thought a lot about what I wanted this website to be, or how I could make the most money doing it, or what pigeonhole I should focus on to attract the largest number of readers. But then I realized that there are roughly 345 million blogs in existence and exactly 6 people making a living through blogging. So I then wondered what would be the most entertaining about doing something like this. And what I decided was that the most fun I’ve had online is when I put together a website that chronicled a yearlong road trip Beth and I took a few years ago and people emailed me to say they enjoyed reading it, or it was funny, or that that Arch thing is in St. Louis, not St. Paul, etc. I will be importing that site over here, so that we don’t have to pay for 2 websites, so if you missed it, don’t worry. Since my chances of becoming a trizillionare through this project are rather remote, I figured I’d make sure my chances of having fun blogging were 100%.

Thus, The Frog Bog was born. The name comes from the fact that Frog and Bog both rhyme with blog, and Frog Bog was catchier than Smog Clog and Log Sog, a bit more G-rated than Flog Dog, not nearly as obtuse as Prog Fog, and far less likely to conjure up disturbing images than Hog Jog.

If you pull up a lilly pad for a couple of minutes and get a chuckle or an “interesting…” or something else productive, this site has accomplished its goal. If you want to shoot me an email or comment about something here, please do. If you’d like my particular take on a noteworthy (or even not worthy) topic, let me know.

Thanks for stopping by, and I wish you an alligator free day.