On Journalling, or How Hard It Is to Keep Up a Blog

In my line of work, which is to say "large-scale database systems", there's always the idea of "journalling" or the "audit trail." Basically, it means that for every transaction of significance, a record is kept of that transaction, stored in a log somewhere, so that should something malefic happen, the logs can be parsed and the trail can be followed, blame can be assigned and countermeasures can be taken.

Okay, that's not really limited to large-scale database systems. Any nontrivial software system should have some sort of journalling scheme involved, as printlogging is usually part and parcel of the development process.

Ideally, I would wish that life too had a journalling system, one more reliable and less arcane than that gift humans call memory. I sometimes have trouble remembering what I had for breakfast this morning. Okay, that's a lie, I seldom forget about meals less than a week old.

But I do have a tendency to forget other things. Tasks to do, people I've met, appointments I've set. A Saturday or so (I forget when), I had set a training meeting at 10am. Of course, my job does not require me to be in the office before noon on Saturdays, so I conveniently forgot about the meeting while playing World of Warcraft, recalling such appointment only while taking a bath at 10:30am. (Luckily they didn't mide me re-scheding to 11:30)

So, frail as our memories are, we resort to other things to keep us on track. Paper, notebooks, to-do-lists, organizers, calendars, cellphones, PDAs, sticky notes and every so often, the proverbial rubber-band-around-the-finger. (Yes, I have done that, and yes I did forget what the rubber band stood for.)

Blogging, is of course, one of those outlets, one of those forms of introspection so commonplace on the web nowadays. I started quite some time ago, on another server, and have kept up, a bit sporadically if I might add. I've never been entirely too sure of my own reasons for blogging. Some parts ego, some parts experimentation, some parts therapy, perhaps some part exhibitionism? In any case, though I have considered several times to abandon this practice, especially when I have been too lazy to pursue it for months on end, I find myself giving it another go eventually. Because life should have an audit trail.

Shall I offer some excuse of why I have been so long without an entry? Some vague representations of WoW addiction, business at work or general laziness? I just did.

In any case, our story continues...