Blackpool Boat Tram

My 1000th blip.

Not quite fourteen years ago, I posted my first entry. I had found blipfoto thanks to a friend at Flickr who had started an account here and was using it as a personal blog. I found that compelling. One photo a day... with words. I had been doing somewhat the same thing at Flickr but without the limitation of only one photo per day, and typically, whatever text I included wasn't so much in the form of a journal. I like to write almost as much as I like to take photos. Or... maybe it's the other way around!

Also, as noted in that first blip, I wanted to be able to write freely here without constrictions. I didn't tell anyone about my account. The self-portraits I posted (most of which appeared my first week here) were intended to keep my identity vague. I didn't want someone to bump into my journal and recognize me. (I think there are a few, however, in which friends would be able to spot me.) I wanted to be part of a community where I could share my photos and my thoughts without feeling as though I had to explain anything to anyone. I didn't have any great secrets, really, I just wanted to feel as though I could say whatever I might be thinking or feeling without any concern for whom might read it.

Eventually, I began to post less and less frequently. I don't know if there was a specific reason. Sometimes, it was because I forgot to take photos. Possibly, Facebook began to take up more of my time. (My Flickr time also fell away.) Maybe life just got in the way. Three years after that first entry, I moved to San Francisco from Michigan. That surely had something to do with it. Regardless, I have missed this place. Along the way, I made a few friends, two of whom I've met in person. Alas, neither of whom are active any longer. I tried kickstarting my journal again in 2017 as I was determined to complete a one-a-day project. Not only here, however, but on three other sites as well. That was a mistake, as I only got up to the first week or so of May when I burned out. I continued to take at least one photo a day, I just didn't get around to posting them here.

So, in the last week or so, I've been back-blipping, filling in the missing 2017 dates. (Currently, I'm working on August.) As I've been filling in the holes in my journal, I've clicked through to the journals of others who commented on my photos back then, and found that many of those people have similarly disappeared. I wonder... can I start things anew here? Anyway, as I uploaded the photos one after another, and occasionally added words for the days I could recall something significant about the day, I watched the blip count get closer and closer to 1000. Clicking back to my first entry, I noticed that I was only a couple of days away from my anniversary date, so instead of adding more photos to fill up August, I thought I'd save number 1000 for today.

I thought about doing a self-portrait for old time's sake, but chose instead to take the subway downtown where the Blackpool Boat Tram was running all day. Built in 1934 in Blackpool, England, the tram was acquired in 1984. It was so popular that a second boat tram was acquired in 2013.