Sad news
In Paris, a Concorde crashed onto a hotel a few minutes after take-off. 113 people died. CNN has details. Die Tagesschau und n-tv berichten auch.
Sand Sculptures
Duncan has photos of some sand sculptures from Glasgow’s George Square. Impressive!
Anniversary
Um… anniversary does not seem the right word, since it comes from “annum”, which is latin and means year. At least that’s what I believe. (Yes, I did take Latin at school – for six years!) So maybe I should call it “mensiversary” instead.
Six months ago today, I started this weblog! 
And it’s been a lot of fun since then. When I started, I wouldn’t have believed that I would keep updating so often. Well, there have been days when I was not in the mood to post anything, or too busy (the latter happened very seldom ;-), but it was fun most of the time.
I think a weblog is a good way to keep all kinds of things: interesting links and thoughts, nice pictures or quotes, discussions with other people about all kinds of things, and even a journal. The big advantage of a weblog, compared to a scrapbook made out of paper, is that it is searchable. How else would I be able to find anything ever again?
Thanks to UserLand for hosting my Manila site.
And to all my “webpals”: Nice to have met you! It’s been great fun!
Wow! I did not think that this was such a special event. Thanks for your congratulations, Garret, Sheila, Susan, Hal, Jörg (whose Schockwellereiter is three months old today!), Craig, Martin, Al, John and Jeff.
Susan likes the word ‘web pal’. I like it too. Craig invented it. Or at least he was the first I have heard/read use it. A Google search yields many pages, and even an organization named Web Pal that matches email pen pals from around the world.
Garret: “andrea’s celebrating six months. i wonder if, when she gets famous, she’ll stop weblogging … i hope not.”
The question is not when I get famous, but if I ever get famous. And I’m not even sure I want to be. Maybe I should think about a new tag line?!
Thanks for the nice compliment, Craig. Makes me blush!
Al, you might be interested to hear that I’m about to release my first CD album. My first book will be available in time for christmas. In case you want a signed copy, send me email! 
happy anniversary, andrea! time sure flies, doesn’t it?
Happy 6 Month Anniversary, Andrea!
It sure has been fun. And a real pleasure to meet you too.
-Sheila :-)
Thanks, Garret! Yes, time flies.
I wonder whether we’ll all be around to celebrate something like Manila’s five years anniversary?! Or will the internet then be totally different from what it’s now? New concepts, and weblogs are history?! Who knows…
Thanks, Sheila!
By typing http://sheila.inessential.com/discuss/msgReader$1 I found out that you started your weblog early in November 1999. Wow, you must have one of the “oldest” Manila weblogs around here!
Andrea
The question is not when I get famous, but if I ever get famous. And I’m not even sure I want to be.
I’ve been pondering the desire for fame. It has lots of downside to it. Paparrazi, lack of privacy, to name a couple of notable ones I think that the desire is more for meaning and significance. Do I matter? Does my life have significance? The “if I” or “when I” thought, “If I were famous, then…” probably boils down to concluding that yes, then I’d say that I matter, and I have significance. If so, then it’s time to look for ways to scratch the “significance” itch without bringing on the paparrazi.
I really don’t want to be famous. I never wanted to. I don’t even know what I would want to be famous for.
All this ‘famous’ business was (for me, at least) about whether anybody would be interested in reading my weblog. I didn’t believe anybody would want to read it when I started, maybe except for a few friends. As it turns out, I have about 100 reads a day, which is much more than I expected. And I guess this kind of “fame” is enough.
I think it is high time to change my tag line. All this ‘being famous’ stuff started when David Theige, who used to write Carpe Diem, discovered my weblog on the second day and wrote: “Andrea may not be famous yet, but she is on her way.”
At that time I thought this was very funny, because nobody knew me then (this was my first web site) and I thought nobody would want to read my weblog. I didn’t even know about what I wanted to write!
All in all, I’m content with the people who do know me – family, friends and web pals – and I don’t need or want to be known to thousands or millions of people. Life would only get more complicated.