I Forgot My Anniversary, But I'm Not In Trouble!

I totally forgot my anniversary! Which anniversary you ask? My web page! Ten years ago I decided to put all my automotive experience and thoughts swimming around in my head on the world wide web. Back then I was quite the novice with the interweb as some of my early posts clearly show, especially my first one. Oh well, live and learn. The internet has changed dramatically in ten years but the Amberlight Garage has remained status quo for all intents and purposes. I hope to keep it going for another ten years or more, God willing.

For those who don't know the story I will indulge your curiosity. I have always wanted to be an automotive journalist. I love writing about cars and mechanical things in general. When I graduated high school the internet had not been thought of yet so print was still alive and doing well. Back then, in order to land a gig at a automotive publication you needed one of two things: a college degree, experience, or preferably both . At that point in my life I had only a few years of experience and was not a fan of higher education, so I had to seek employment elsewhere. Fast forward 26 years to the year 2008. With a lot of automotive experience, ample speciality schooling, and just living life under my belt I felt I was finally ready to seek out a career as an automotive journalist. I soon realized that I was missing one crucial element, writing experience. So with nothing more then a basic computer course and a head full of stories, I set out to create my very own web page. Blogging was all the rage so that's the format I chose, a la Frank's Classic Car Blog.The "hosting" page for my blog is the Amberlight Garage, which by the way is an actual garage that works on classic cars for exclusive clientele. (me) Forget about getting your classic worked on there, the waiting list is over 10 years long! Most folks don't know it but the Amberlight Garage was actually named after the middle light in a traffic signal. Yea, that's not yellow, it's amber. Early on I thought opportunity came knocking for a automotive writing gig but fate had a different plan. I always try and listen to my gut when it comes to major decisions and the choice I made here was spot on. As we now all know, Popular Hot Rodding magazine (which was the "major publication" referred to in my story) went the way of the Dodo bird and most if not all print magazines are switching to online content, some exclusively. Is print dead? It might be dying a slow death but writing is alive and kicking, thanks to all you readers.

So here I am, present day, still blogging along and still hoping to land a writing gig and get my first article published, dare I say it, in print. I know someday it will happen, probably when I retire from my real job, and that's only six years away! I think I will put it on my bucket list, right between "attend Viva Las Vegas" and "move the hell out of California". In the meantime I'll be looking forward to my next anniversary, so stay tuned for plenty of cool content in-between.