The February issue of Chicago Magazine named my Chicago comedy blog, The Bastion, one of Chicago’s best web sites, and also praised my personal blog, describing it as “engagingly bloggy musings about life.” (Thanks to ideaXchange member Anne Ford for pointing the article out to me.)

I suppose I am among the first crop of writers to start a career by writing for the web before making the transition to print (or as I used to think of it, “real writing”).

I shouldn’t be surprised that I continue to get press coverage and professional opportunities because people check out my blogs, but I am. I guess I tend to think of writing for the web as less serious and credible, but of course, it’s not just casual bloggers and teenyboppers writing for the web — corporations do it, too, and they hire people like me to do it for them.

And I know enough about internet culture to know that once I made the decision to put my real name on my blog, everything I posted there was part of my permanent record as a communicator, and would reflect my capabilities as much as clips of corporate and editorial work I put on my professional site. Good thing I decided early on to fret over proper spelling and good form, because Google cache will make sure that everything I’ve ever posted online with my name on it will live forever.