When I started this blog it was part of my job. My boss then – Tony Dodero – wanted all of us on staff to segue into the new media and I was glad to do it since I already had a high ‘net consciousness when I helped him launch the company’s new websites for the local newspapers.

A lot has happened since then. And, I have to admit, I didn’t contribute as much to the blog at first because I was so busy with other responsibilities.

But then this political junkie’s dream happened – the 2008 presidential election. It was easily the most fascinating election I’ve tracked in my life and I doubt it will ever be topped. When the inauguration neared I felt compelled to cap it off by covering what I knew would be the story of my life. I decided to pay for my own plane fare and, thanks to some friends of mine, I had a hotel I could crash at in Washington, D.C. It was the perfect opportunity to breathe some life into my then-stagnant blog.

While there in DC, I, of course, encountered so much to write about from the concerts to the halls of Congress where I got to interview some local political leaders.

And it was there that I finally immersed myself in social networking, thanks to some cajoling from my friends Dave and Mary. Dave’s an IT director for a New York non-profit and Mary’s a website consultant. Mary could hardly believe it when I told her I hadn’t joined Facebook. I don’t blame her. I had a lame excuse. I blamed it all on my dissatisfaction with Friendster and MySpace, two social-networking sites that I considered dull and lackluster.

“But Paul, if you want to improve the traffic on your blog you’re never going to do it without Facebook, LinkedIn…” and she ticked off a number of other sites.

After some more cajoling I finally agreed to an experiment. I would join a few social-networking sites like Facebook and then post links to my blog posts from the inauguration.

My traffic tripled.

Granted, my traffic was pretty meager already, but you can’t argue with the stats.

I was hooked.

And thank God for that. Because it’s really how I got to know Mona.

Which brings me to the second part of this story – how my blog has evolved.

Mona and I were introduced when she pitched me on a story. Mona, the publicist, kept pitching me great stories, which I bit on, but one day she called and said she couldn’t find me on Facebook. It’s important to note that at this time we still hadn’t met in person and I actually didn’t even know what she looked like. She was still just the voice on the other end of my office phone line.

“Maybe it’s better if I ask you to be a friend on Facebook since my name is so common it’s hard to find me,” I said.

So I did that and she accepted me.

Our relationship grew from professional to personal. I’ll never forget how we got into a chat about “My So-Called Life,” a show we both loved, and I told her how I bought the original DVD set released in 2002, but never got the damned lunch box I paid for. Mona googled it and instantaneously found one for sale on eBay and posted it on my wall. I thought, this girl is hilarious.

When I left my job in Costa Mesa to work for a wire service my blog mission changed. My old employers graciously allowed me to keep the name, Supplied To Anderson, and keep the content, though I took it private. But I had to be careful what I wrote about. I couldn’t write about work anymore because the content I provide our clients belongs to them.

So I had an idea. Maybe the blog should just be more personal – about my life. And that’s what it has become.

And you can imagine how proud I felt when Supplied to Anderson recently won a second place from the Orange County Press Club for best vlogs. Proud, not for me, but for Mona. For us. And, really, if you want to know the truth, a little guilty because my name is on the award for our Vlog Day Afternoon posts here and she’s the one who deserves most, if not all, of the credit. Mona’s the one who learned iMovie on her own and helped us go from just single-camera talking-head vlogs to our zany Vlog Day Afternoon productions. Trust me, they’re quite elaborate and it takes Mona a long time to get them edited just right. I remember reading once how during the editing process Scorsese would spend a good deal of the time watching classic films, occasionally nodding and making a suggestion or two while his long-time editor Thelma Schoonmacher did the heavy lifting. I probably do even less than that.

So we put together a compilation of a typically crazy weekend we shot a little while back. Hope you enjoy it – it’s a taste of all the fun we have together.

And, of course, we put it together here and there and finished it up on a weekend we pledged to do basically nothing.

We’ll try to do more in the future. But, then, we’re having so much fun together we may not be that consistent. Hope you don’t mind.

P.S. When Mona read this she protested, “That’s not true, I don’t do it all. It’s a joint effort. We’re in it together.” As usual, she’s right. ‘Nuff said.

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