What Is BBRUG?
BBRUG: Brooklyn Bridge User Group is my personal web site--a group of one. I first tossed it online at a time when I was walking over the bridge to work every day, and the original idea was for it to be a place where I could post my bridgey comments and where other bridge users could file or find news about the bridge. I was working full-time on another web site, however, so I never told anybody about the site, and I rarely had time to work on it. Not surprisingly, in two years I received only one bridge-related inquiry. This was before I'd heard of blogs, too, so when I did remember to post something, it was a multistep process; I rarely bothered. And, finally, shortly after September 11, I became a winner in the Great American Layoff Sweepstakes and stopped having a job to walk to. Bummer.
I still had some web space and this domain name, though, not to mention a lot of free time on my hands. A friend had been blathering to me about the wonder of blogs, and I set one up just to see what it was all about. I didn't think much of it at first and found it hard to imagine what to post, especially knowing that no one else was reading what I wrote, but eventually I started using the blog pretty regularly--for everything except bridge stuff. Now I'm back to the full-time job grind and can't post as often as I would like, but portions of the archives remain popular. The hottest topics for Googlers here tend to be bedbugs and Camp Trywoodie, neither of which I have fond feelings for.
So who am I, and why isn't my name or e-mail address anywhere on this site? Well, the problem is that I have a distinctive, highly Googleable name, and I don't really want all my professional colleagues reading about my bug problems, or stealing all my cake recipes. Plus, you know, there's my mom. She's cute, but sometimes I complain about her. And she may someday learn how to use Google.
About e-mail, I've been online long enough to have had more than one e-mail address rendered unusable by huge quantities of spam, so I'm trying to delay for as long as possible the demise of the current ones. You can contact me using the feedback form on the front page, or you can write to me at the mindspring.com domain, to the username iamos. My goal is caution, not anonymity. If you're trying to figure out whether you already know me, here are some handy facts:
- I'm a thirty-something girl who grew up in NYC's West Village, lives in Brooklyn, works in publishing, and does freelance editorial work and book design.
- I went to P.S. 3, I.S. 70, Stuyvesant High School, and Williams College. I went to Camp Trywoodie for four summers and attended Quaker youth conferences at Powell House when I was in high school. If you're a long-lost friend, I'd love to hear from you. (If you're looking for people who enjoyed their stays at Trywoodie, please go to the Trywoodie Yahoo! group.)
- I used my first computer when I was about seven and was an avid Windows PC geek for years, but in January 2002 I got an Apple PowerBook with Mac OS X, which I loved. I'm now on my second PowerBook, which I love even more. Macs are better, I swear.
- I knit, bake, read eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature, study French, host tea parties, talk a lot about sewing but don't actually do it, and don't watch television.
- No, I don't have any cats.
If you're a Brooklyn Bridge user who came here looking for bridge stuff, please do get in touch. I'm very fond of the bridge and hope to find a way to work it back into my commute during warm weather. It sounds corny, but walking to work made me feel more connected to my city, my neighbors, and my climate, and I really used to enjoy seeing regulars on the bridge every morning. If you're one of them, it would be a pleasure to know who you are--unless you're that guy who always used to leer at me, in which case, Fuck Off.
Last updated 12.16.2006
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