The N Judah Chronicles Turns 3 Today!

While doing my morning work routine, I realized upon looking at the date that in fact today marks the 3rd Anniversary of the blog. I suppose I should have marked it with a big party or something, but that’ll have to wait because the day job calls.
Still, I am often asked how it was that I got the idea to do this site, much less keep going, so it’s time for the Origin story of the N Judah Chronicles. If I was more talented, I’d do it in the appropriate comic book form, but instead I’ll just do a short recap.
In 2005 I returned to SF after a brief detour in Venice Beach, CA (the less said about that, the better), and for the first time, did not have a car with me. My car had met an unfortunate end in Los Angeles, and I was ready to get another one, but then wondered “can someone really live in SF without a car?” and after looking at how much I was paying for gas, insurance, car payments and taxes, I decided to give it a try.
It was a bit annoying at first, but gradually I got used to it. It seemed like every time I was on the N or whatever, there’d be Some Drama playing out. One day I had a particularly annoying experience taking the N to Safeway and wrote an email and sent it off as a joke to about 20 friends, and figured that was that.
I had no idea this thing was being passed around, and people (including folks I didn’t know) started asking for another one. So I started up a blog at the free Journalspace.com service (they suck, don’t use ’em) and figured I’d do a summer “anony-blog” on reactions to SF urban life, and end it in September. I had no idea why anyone would read it, but once “Mason Powell” and I took some photos of the faux BART station in Duboce Park, the site started to get hits as people searched for info on the fake station on The Google.
And the rest is history. I eventually moved all my blogs off of Journalspace and onto a real server, bought domain names on the cheap, and decided to turn all my MUNI-related angst into a side hobby, and it’s been fun. I’ve met a lot of interesting people, which I never would have done had I not been doing the blog. There are many people who were kind enough to give this blog a little free linkage, especially back in the early days, including the various editors of SFist (past and present), Craig Newmark, and many many more who were nice enough to tell others about the NJC over the years.
Anyway, thanks for reading the site, buying the shirts, and so on. So long as this remains a fun sideline to my “real” job and is not a chore, I’ll keep doing it, and on the day it becomes a Big Hassle, I’ll move on to something else. For now, though, let’s continue to have a little fun with Our Fair City and its MUNI follies!

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3 Responses to The N Judah Chronicles Turns 3 Today!

  1. Patrick Ledwith says:

    Congrats, Greg. I look forward to each and every post. Cheers to three more years.

  2. Nick says:

    Happy 3rd birthday N Judah Chronicles!

  3. tangobaby says:

    Congratulations and Happy Birthday! I enjoy your blog very much, and often forget that you have a “real” job, so I appreciate your efforts even more.
    😉

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