Welcome To The Twentieth Year

 Welcome to the Freakshow that is Guitar Ted Productions! It is here that I will be at liberty to espouse my verbiage in an unbridled, yet entertaining fashion. I have previously been a guest on Jeff Kerkove's site, and I would like to thank him for his incredible generosity. Look for further upgrades to this site as they become technically possible for me to execute! 

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What you just read above the line is my first post on May 11th, 2005. I actually posted twice on that day, and I received my first comments on this blog on the second post welcoming me to the blogosphere.  

By the way, today's header is based upon the last header Jeff Kerkove designed for this site and was the header which ran the longest. I think I used it until at least 2014, maybe longer. This anniversary edition variant, (modded by your's truly), will be there for the remainder of the week. 

The oldest image I have of the Karate Monkey I bought in 2003. This is from May 2005.

My second post from May 2011 was about my 29"er, probably the first one in this part of Iowa, which I put together about two years prior to this image. There are a couple of parts here which tell an interesting story.

I noticed there are Ergon grips on the bike. These would have been the original GP-1's which were given to everyone participating in the first Trans Iowa. The next thing I noted was the orangey stem, which represented a component color popular in the late 1990's. The stem is a Control Tech stem. The saddle is a short-lived WTB effort aimed at commuters. It was shorter and slimmer in profile than most saddles around at the time. I really liked it, but it must not have caught on.

That saddle was given to me at Frost Bike by a WTB rep to try out, a "big deal" at the time because I never had anything given to me to 'just try out' up until that point. This was without any possible way for me to review it, since when I received it I didn't have a blog!

Finally, the Nokon segmented housing. It did make the brakes work great, but it was expensive  and really fiddly to work with. Unless you enjoy stringing beads, I'd not recommend it.

Okay, back to the anniversary.... 

I really am not 'proud' nor do I feel some feeling of 'major accomplishment' as I cross over into having done this for twenty years using my two second fingers on each hand. I mean, I am such a terrible typist, I am really just amazed I fought through the typing difficulties, the technical hurdles, and setbacks which came along the way. I mean, I could have just quit at any time and would anyone care after a while?

So, I am amazed I've stuck to this for two decades more than anything else. I am humbled to have helped, inspired, or entertained along the way. Maybe I made someone mad and they never came back. Well, at least I inspired some passionate reactions from those folks! That is better than not having mattered at all.

As for the future, I always address this subject at the end of each year here on the blog. Suffice it to say that I will address the subject at the end of 2025. 

For now? Ride on!

Thank you for reading Guitar Ted Productions!