A WordPress Daily Prompt from October 5, 2015 asked:
Think of your blog as a mirror: what does it reveal? Consider your blog name, theme choice, design, bio, posts… what does every element tell you about yourself?
For a detailed history of my blog, check out this post.
The blog title Your Captain Speaks was first thought of by me back in 2007 when I first launched my blog. One of my nicknames back in high school was “Captain,” so I decided to use it as part of my title. Because a blog is mostly commentary and communication toward other people, I wanted to incorporate ‘Captain’ into a title that conveyed that I was aiming to speak at/to people. Being in a field of work that involves aviation, I thought about some different plays on that nickname and eventually thought about the common phrase, “This is your captain speaking,” often stated by airline pilots before making an announcement to the passengers on-board. I figured it was a little too long for a title, so I simply shortened it to its current form, Your Captain Speaks. It’s functional and it works.
The previous version of my blog had over 650 posts and ran for many years. I put it to rest a few years ago and then relaunched the current version in January 2015.
My themes have always been eclectic. WordPress now offers more theme options than ever, including customization. This is something I never had the luxury of when I first had my blog, so I was limited to the pre-designed templates and the 3-5 color options they offered for each one. The first version of my blog often featured bright colors and themes, but I am increasingly preferring darker themes and tones. As a write this, I have a dark theme with orange accents and trim. I thought it was appropriate for the season.
My design is much more pleasing to the eyes now than it has been in the past. I always chose the three-column themes prior to this relaunch because I was all about having as many features and widgets as possible. Unfortunately, the more toys you put on your blog, the more work and effort it takes to maintain it all. So, for this incarnation, I decided to stay somewhat minimalist and focus on the content, not the widgets. I do plan to add a few more pages in the near future, however.
My posts are starting to become more like the days of old when I simply wanted to talk about my daily life. It’s important to me to keep the style of writing that made my blog so popular to begin with, so I am trying to avoid over-professionalizing it and turning off the original audience.
What does every element of my blog tell me about myself? Well, it tells me this: I am just as eclectic in my online presence as I am in my physical presence. #SorryNotSorry
