Huh? Yeah, I know. The reaction of many is probably the same.
But the free widgets such as Google analytics, Adsense, Meebo chat rooms and customized search which I couldn't play with on wordpress.com were too tempting. For a moment, I considered registering my own domain name and moving the blog to a self hosted server. With this, I would have the freedom to install whichever widgets and javascript toys I wanted, but in the end, the cost detered me. Granted, a domain name for about $10/year and a hosting service for $5-10/month isn't a whole lot of dough but blogging is a hobby, so if it's free, it's better.
In moving, I think I'll miss the sleek and sexy look of the wordpress templates as well as the blog publishing software - easy to navigate and to get posts published in the desired format.
Did I make the right move? Hopefully. If not, the time was not completly thrown down the proverbial drain. I certainly learned a bunch about html, css, blogging software, widgets, three column blogger templates and social media. Just as I'm sure many patients have thanked "Doctor Google" for answering their medical questions, I would like to send a shout out to "Computer Dude/tt Google" for helping answer all my tech questions as I moved the blog. Without you, the blog would have looked really funky.
Cheers and a belated Happy New Year!