How well do you remember 2003? The US and UK invaded Iraq looking for stuff the Iraqis didn’t have. The Space Shuttle Columbia burned to pieces in the skies over Texas. China suffered an epidemic of a new disease, SARS. Yugoslavia ceased to exist. MySpace was launched. Concorde flew for the last time. And in June, I set off to travel around Mexico. But not before creating a newfangled website to record my journey, knocked together with a knock off copy of Macromedfia Dreamweaver. Today marks the 20th birthday of this blog. Happy Birthday to ‘The Mexile’.
On June 22nd, I wrote a single drab paragraph, and published to a web host. Over the following two decades I added countless paragraphs, essays, articles, rants and musings, published using several different domains, switching between several blogging platforms and ‘branded’ with a couple of different names. There’s been some drivel and there’s been some bits of writing that I think are rather good. Once upon a time I earned quite a bit of cash writing sponsored posts. But whatever else might be said about it, my blog has outlasted seven British Prime Ministers and one famous lettuce. What percentage of blogs from 2003 and earlier still remain active? I suspect this blog is more than just a 1%er in that regard. Probably a 0.01%er.
There is no great point to the continued existence of this blog. The audience is limited. And much diminished since departing Mexico. I do often question why on earth I bother. The ever lengthening gaps between posts suggests that I don’t hugely bother. Blogs these days aren’t what they were in 2003. I’ve made plenty of connections over the years through blogging. Some of those folk I call friends. Some have died. Others just disappeared. The world has changed hugely over 20 years – some of them sadly turned all a little bit fascist. Such is life.
But for the most part the value in blogging, this blog and I guess any personal blog, is in keeping a record of your life and the world you live in. Your thoughts and opinions shaped by the times you live in. And these have been interesting times indeed. I enjoy looking back at old posts from time to time. So with that in mind, onwards I go. For another 20 years? We’ll see.
The photo above was taken in Mexico 2003. So it is also 20 years old. This was my dad’s favorite of the photos I brought back from Mexico on that trip.
The Mexile 
I used to read a lot of blogs back then too and as you say there were quite the variety. Quite a few in or about Mexico, I had considered buying a hovel in Merida and another one later on in Ajijic. But my sons weren’t into it and in fact I had to fend off various attacks about how ridiculous the whole idea was but then I would be doing the work myself. I had even started a duplicate tool kit to bring down, I’d studied different building styles and was considering building the boveda brick roof design as I love the look of them. In the end it didn’t happen and I capitulated and bought a caravan on another island closer to home for all to share. In the heel of the hunt it was seldom used and I sold it last year for a handsome profit which still blows me away.
I always enjoyed Steve’s blog and Joanna Van der Gracht de Rosado from Vancouver’s various blogs too we used to chat now and then, who lives in Merida and who’s son now writes for Yucatan Magazine https://yucatanmagazine.com/ and yours of course. I stopped reading Steve’s after his dog Barco died, around that time we had three funerals (why is does the word ‘funeral’ have the word fun in it?) it was unfortunate and yer man Zapata and Kim all very rich and entertaining up to a point. Kim posts from time to time as he renovates two ArtDeco homes in DF.
Long winded as usual thanks for entertaining us with your observations, humour and elegant photography. Through your endeavours you managed to snag a wife and entertain a vast slew of followers. Life tends to catch up with all of us, computers crash and become corrupted links lost etc and that’s all the simple nitty gritty life gets in the way!
These days though you have a one track mind out of necessity being the driver, but hey you have wandered the globe and enriched all our lives with your photography!
So I’ll raise my glass (it’s called bodacious, a smooth red) to your future endeavours, thanks for the entertainment and I will look forward to more of your musings.
Colm
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Steve hasn’t retired as a blogger, as far as I know. But his content is even more sporadic than mine. Which is saying something. But yes, most blogs seem to have either withered or died. It won social media wot dun it. It’s a shame. I don’t keep in touch with Kim, haven’t done for sometime. Last I saw of him, he’d joined the Grand Duke of Patzcuaro and declared his total support for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. I’m just gonna say that some years ago I went out on a limb and said that those two would readily and openly embrace fascism, and here we are…🤣 It’s a rather sad state of affairs, but such is life.
I haven’t blogged much because I have a lot on in life. This driver training course is lengthy and intensive. But I’m working towards the promised land of a decent salary and a four day working week. More travel and blogging time beckons…
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Keep on blogging! I always enjoy reading your posts, even though they aren’t as frequent as they used to be.
I can’t compete with you for blog longevity, but mine will celebrate its 10th anniversary on October 27th of this year. (I had to go back and check the date of my first post.) I average more than 365 posts per year. That perhaps makes me sound rather pathetic, as if I have nothing better to do than write on my blog. But I enjoy writing something each morning, and sometimes again each afternoon.
Saludos,
Bill, the retired teacher
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Thanks Bill. I also regularly read your blog, especially when you’re posting from CDMX!
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Well, yes, blogging can be a lonely hobby, but I would urge you to continue. I’ve enjoyed your writing (the story about the old man in the train station, for one); your photos from Central Asia (Uzbekistan?) of those mosques with two million mosaics; and your snarky comments about Tory politicians. So keep writing and I will continue reading.
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I’ll keep writing, as time allows. It is a hobby, I guess. At the moment, time is a commodity I have little of. But that’ll change, probably next year.
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Congrats on the 20. That’s quite the substantial record.
World events aside, for me 2003 was a rather uneventful year. Was still studying anthropology in Cheney, was still in a continuing relationship. And my blog on Opera and diagnosis of heart failure were still a couple years away.
I do still continue that early 2006 blog though in it’s slightly altered Word Press form. I still post, but usually only the fiction that I write. There’s about a 50/50 chance that I will live to see my twentieth year. Truthtold, I even consider 17 a huge win.
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I think that all things considered, uneventful years are often good years. I am rooting for you to get your blog to 20, Ed.
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Thanks so much, Gary.
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