Chip's Spynotebook

I’m trying to think when I had my first web page. It was probably around the same time I first started working at the Academy. That was also when I got in trouble for having “links” to other sites on the first Academy page. But that is another story. Good times.

The first page that could technically be called a blog was Chip’s Broken Leg Page. I am not sure if blog was a word yet in 1999 but it was a page that I updated daily with “news” so I am counting it. Now, this news was (of course) all about my broken leg and I even had a webcam so my Grandparents could check me out from their house.

Did I mention that I had to move back in with my Mom for a month because of the broken leg? There was nothing to do but watch TV and surf on the 20th century internet. The blog kept me sane. The painkillers, of course, helped also.

Was this a blog? It was:

A. Updated regularly with snippets of news.

B. This news was about a very esoteric topic that only appealed to a few people.

C. It was ALL ABOUT ME.

I think it was a blog.

The Internet Archive still has a partial copy of this site even thought I don’t.

My favorite parts are probably the “Ooopsie Whoopsie!” drawing that Madie did for me before she was all famous and the fact that I had a “People Who Have Wronged Me” section. It is unfortunate that the page no longer exists because I don’t remember if I have exacted my revenge on these forgotten people.

The news section was imported into my blog and so you can read all that by visiting the archives on Chip’s Spynotebook (link provided if you are reading this elsewhere).

Some of my favorite entries from the leg days are:

8-3-1999: “Chip discovers that two painkillers at 1:45 make Passions ever so much more enjoyable.”

8-5-1999: “Chip gives alt.tv.passions an earfull about recent events in the Sheridan Crane storyline and talks at length about Timmy, the living doll during the wee morning hours. Susan and Kate came over a little later for the daily Passions dose.”

8-9-1999: “So this psychic is coming to Atlanta that charges 40 to 80 dollars for some sort of psychic show. My mom wants to go. During this conversation, Sara, Kate and I learned that there is a ghost dog in the house. Obviously, this bit of info has just shortened my stay here considerably.”

8-10-1999: “My grandmother just came by to check on me and to bring me banannas and cheese chex mix and to be sure that I had not fallen and could not get up.”

8-11-1999: “It has been a very busy morning in bed. I got an email from Patty, Mark’s wife (Mark being my boss) saying that everything at school was down network-wise. I poked around as best I could from this end and didn’t get very far because, well, the network there is down. I got as far as one of my my Linux boxes and couldn’t get past it. I called on the phone and apparently there is no traffic passing at all. I wish them all the best of luck as I take another pain pill and watch Eastenders.”

So, as you can see, most of my first blog was devoted to pain pills and soap operas. I should probably get back to that.

“Leg Day” is my own personal holiday every July 30.

This is a special “Leg Day” because it has been 10 years since I fell down, broke my leg, stayed in bed for a month, and used that time to start what is now known as “Chip’s Spynotebook”. I’m not saying that I wouldn’t have started blogging if I wasn’t bored out of my mind and hepped up on the pain killers, but it certainly didn’t *hurt*.

Over the next few days I will be posting some links and old pages from the early days.

So, be careful today. Stay away from ladders.