I started this blog two years ago, you can view a snapshot by Wayback Machine, which was taken one month later after this blog was born.

‘Outputs directly from me about computer stuff mostly…’ was what I initially thought what I would write with this blog. Sometime after that, I changed it to ‘Outputs directly from me about almost everything…,’ and then ‘Outputs directly from me about almost everything….’ I thought I could write anything happened in my life, but I realized I couldn’t. A lot of things would be boring to others.

I consider my blog is a personal space, though it’s like house opened to public, I still have my bedroom door locked. Everyone can see everything in the house, wander around, although they may not like what they see. Whether they like or not, it does not really matter to me. It’s my own place, if I don’t like their disliking, I would just kick them out. Simply as that.

Blogging has been taking a big chuck of my life for at least five years. When I first discovered this blogging thing, it was new to me and, frankly, it excited me. It was a brand new concept for me to grasp, it was the time before the social networking being created. There was no Facebook, no Twitter, not even many people knew or used Google. It was just you and your blog, you and your words, showing whatever you put into your post directly to your reader, if any, from your mind.

My first blog was written in English and I still insist writing in English. I am not a native English speaker and I have no shame to admit my English is not good, but not bad, either. You can still understand my English, or you wouldn’t be possible to read this far. I had tried to ask for help, but people would be too kind to point out my mistakes.

Topic, what to write about is always a big thing for me to ponder from time to time. As you may know about me, I am more of a programmer. I didn’t want to limit the topics on this blog, that’s why I named it ‘YJL --verbose.’ ‘YJL‘ is the initials of my full name, ‘--verbose,’ it’s the convention of command-line programs for verbose output.

I always wanted to express my feelings, thoughts, and opinions, but that didn’t happen a while after I started this blog. Until recently, I wrote about my opinions more than ever. I tended to avoid showing my opinions to public, because I was afraid of arguments. Not because I could be wrong, but the possible flame war. Silly, isn’t it? There is nothing to worry, just leave it if it is one-step toward full-scaled curse war. I can always choose to stop reading further.

Beside opinions, I want to write more about food and what I cook for myself. However, I am reluctant to that subject because people sort of expect to read a recipe in part of the post. Recipe is not something I can give out, simply because I don’t have any, I just put whatever I have and amount I like, eyeballing to speak. I don’t know if it is a teaspoon, a tablespoon, or a cup.

Truth is the lack of recipe isn’t the main reason, I didn’t write about food, because I can’t take good photos of them. I read many cooking blogs, they are awesome, mouthwatering. The photos look amazing and posts are well-written. This area would take time for me to get on, I still have plenty of things to learn.

I have to admit that I might be obsessed with blogging. I would like to use ‘writing,’ but my writing skill hasn’t reached that level. You could say I am learning about writing by blogging, there, it must be like that. As far as I know, to become a good writer, reading is important part of it. I subscribe to many blogs, there are a lot of good writers hidden behind their blogs. I hope I can learn more by reading them, but sometimes, my bad habit dominates my hands, I just scroll down and only skim over the photos instead of words.

Comments, I always love to read, although I don’t reply to them every time. Interestingly, it’s quite often after I publish a post, I expect to receive a comment about it. But I doesn’t. Instead, I get comments from posts which I never think they will get some attentions. It’s like life, you wouldn’t ever know what can become a hit. Unexpected surprises, I would call.

During the last two years, I hit Blogger’s Block countless times. A few months without a single post, then suddenly several posts a day like the last three months. The block may come anytime soon, I don’t know. Nearly two weeks ago, I told myself to slow down a bit, because I needed to figure out how I am going to continue. I wasn’t satisfied, there always is something itching in my blogging. The worst thing was I didn’t know what it is, it’s only a feeling.

Till now, I still can’t figure out. But I have changed my blogging method a bit. Almost every post you read was written two days ago. I delay the post publishing, or schedule to publish in other words. This way, I can edit and edit again. My brain always trick me and my memory likes to play hide and seek, some details only show up after I press the publish button.

I can not predict what this blog would be next year, but I will try to continue what I have started two years ago.