I have several friends who blog or make videos or make blog videos or video blogs or etc. It’s something I’d like to do this year. It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a while. But I just never do it. I’m stuck.
The question is why. I asked most of these people how they do it and most importantly how they got started and there was a universal answer. Just do it. Do anything. And commit.
They all started the same way. They just managed to keep a schedule, a routine, long enough for it to stick.
The next question is what am i going to write about? Or video about? I have answers but i don’t necessarily have that one underlying answer.
I am in a unique position. I have deep knowledge, experience, and opinions about nearly all things nerd culture. I’m a fan, a shop owner, and someone who loves to think about all this stuff. I like to learn and read and review. I like to be on the cutting edge and talk about big ideas and play games and read comics and watch shows. I also like sports and outside and charity and family and a hundred more things.
But what adds to my uniqueness, to my story,is my personal experience with disability and mental health.
I was born blind in my left eye. I fought for the vision in my right eye ever since. Being ‘Low vision’, i exist with one foot in two worlds, the sighted and the blind, and it gives me a fascinating perspective.
I also have fought ADHD, untreated for most of my life, along with anxiety and depression. I took this all head on in 2011 for the first time and began a journey of mental health.
Combine this all and I’ve got one hell of a story to tell. It’s the backbone of a memoir / small business book that i’ve been developing for a while. It could also be the backbone of public speaking. But why? What’s it all for?
Honestly, it’s only recently that i think i have an answer to that big question. I think it’s to help people and build a career doing it.
My professional life has always been retail. I’ve owned Paradox for 25 years. But the true joy of it has always been interacting with people, in building communities and games and connecting people to hobbies and passions. I am very good at what i do and have managed at times to make a good salary doing it. And now i have a chance to build towards something new or add to who i am and what i do, to tell that story and see where the telling leads.
Well, there. I think i did it. Wrote a blog. Feels like a decent place to start. I can’t promise I’ll be back next week. I can promise you might read about Superman, Star Wars, Minnesota Vikings football, Paradox Comics, my new dogs, mental health, blindness, Non Violent Communication, or ADHD. As for politics? I’ve had a rule to never talk politics in a public forum. I used to. In the 1990s friends of mine and i argued politics nearly every Wednesday night at the shop right in front of customers. I was 20 something and struggling to hang on to anything and could not see the forest for the trees. This blog won’t ever be specifically about politics. I’d rather just show you who i am, what’s in my heart, than engage in that. I might talk about economics especially in regards to running the shop or the consequences of some policy on doing so, but this will not be a place to strictly debate or pontificate.
Thanks for reading this. Let me know what you think. What would you like to read about? What do i have to say that can help you? And how can i help?

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