The dreaded first post ...

... and this time for real - cos I've deleted the test one that's been sitting there for a few days while I fiddled with adding comments, trackbacks, permalinks and a site counter - some of the stuff the "experts" say you should have - which hopefully all works ok. But now it's time to stop wasting precious hours trying to figure out how to edit the HTML code to put an extra space or two between the time and the "LINK" in the "POSTED BY" line below (suggestions for fixing it welcomed by this HTML novice) - and get on with actually writing something.

I've also spent some time reading all those lists of do's and don'ts for beginning bloggers, so hopefully my blunders won't be too big - although I am a firm believer in the premise that the best way to learn is by making mistakes, even if it is scary.

So ... why am I doing this? I started reading a couple of blogs a month or so ago - I'd heard about the whole blogosphere thing before but never explored it properly. At the time, I was curious to see if there were any other "laypeople" who were trying to learn maths and physics (in particular) by themselves, and my search revealed Electron Blue - Pyracantha's weblog, subtitled "an artist studies mathematics and physics". I read that from start to finish and followed lots of links to other webpages and blogs - and I was hooked.

I spend a lot of time exploring ideas, gathering information, reading books and surfing the web. I've always liked the idea of keeping a journal or record of life in general and my "thought life" in particular but have never been disciplined enough to stick with it. My hope is that by blogging in a public forum I will develop the habit of crystallising some of my random wanderings and retaining more of the lessons I have learned - and who knows, someone out there might find some of it worth reading and even learn something, too.