10 Years of Hoagie Central

I left the friendly confines of Champaign, Illinois, and moved to Chicago in June 2005. I had a 2-month internship at an ad agency. I was no longer a college student. I had entered the real world.

Unable to see my friends on a daily basis, I started sending emails. A lot of them were unorganized thoughts about sports and video games. This continued throughout the fall. I started pretending that I had a sports column like Bill Simmons but only sending them to a few friends via email. I even had gimmicks like Scary NFL Notes emailed on Halloween.

Here's an example. Note Niraj saying I should be a sports writer, and me completely validating his thoughts with my response. 

Eventually, I decided it would be better to just put everything up online instead of clogging my friends' inboxes. 

On November 14, 2005, I created a blog called SportsCorner. 

Although you wouldn't know that's when this blog was founded, because of the impressive ability to backdate blog posts. When I created the blog I went back through my emails and populated the previous months. I was happy to make a worthwhile first post (with bonus comment!) I also invented the Reverse Wildcat formation which you can only run when you have two good quarterbacks, something a team never has. 

Incidentally, my first live post actually got a bit of attention. It was suggestions for improving soccer and apparently before Twitter, people would search through blogger (in this case, presumably for "soccer") and actually leave comments on stranger's blogs. It was entirely surprising, the idea that strangers out there not only could read this, but would. And leave comments. 

This incident prepared me to expect that I would have tons of visitors and comments, increasing steadily over the years. This did not happen. 

I remember the Monday after Super Bowl XL, just two weeks after I started my first full-time job, writing this post. It was the moment that I felt like, this blog is something important, something that I will be using for a long time. 

On February 15, 2006, I changed the name of this blog from SportsCorner to Free Meat. Using the Wayback Machine, here's the earliest visual evidence of this blog: 

On May 10, 2006, I made a timeline post, showing how football video game graphics changed over the years. I emailed it to Will Leitch, the guy running Deadspin at the time. He made a post there linking to mine. I got a ton of traffic and a ton of comments. And then I realized, that I don't really care about such things. But it was sort of fun to do one time.

In July 2006, I got married. 

By October 2006, I changed the name from Free Meat to Hoagie Central. People might have thought that I would continually change the name, but this was it. I didn't really like either of the first two names. Hoagie Central is my brand. 

Also in the fall of 2006, I outlined how an 8-team College Football Playoff would work, 8 years before the NCAA implemented a 4-team playoff. I even had separate email debates with Dan Shanoff and Bomani Jones.

I also gave Will Leitch the idea for the Deadspin Hall of Fame, although I didn't reveal the conversation until a year later. 

In 2007, I chronicled my first of many weight loss journeys. The summer brought an instant best of live chat and one other instant classic. I made a lot of valid points and fostered some intellectual high-brow discussion.

I lost my wedding ring and Mrs. Hoagie Central found it.

This is how the site looked at the time. Here's when I added some visual navigation and of course the hoagie header. 

In 2008, I started writing a novel and tracked my progress on the blog. I even asked for contributions and Mark suggested something that made it's way into Autopilot. 

In February, I changed the URL from davefymbo.blogspot to hoagiecentral.blogspot. Aside from a few minor aesthetic changes, the site has pretty much been the same since that day.

In May, a couple of crazy kids drove to Memphis and ate some barbecue. And then I got all political about Obama. And he won. I was even there on Election Night.

2009 came and I went to Italy and had the best sandwich of my life. My novel came out. I won a softball tournament and a volleyball tournament. We moved from Chicago to Oak Park, rolling through the Portillo's drive-thru with two box springs tied to the roof of our car.

We made stupid bets and I played stupid (though not really) video games. I even answered the age old question, what does a $19 hamburger taste like?

In 2010, I finally got to see The Late Show with David Letterman. And Walden Pond, which I was too stupid to say yes to when my Dad offered to take me 11 years prior.

I ate foods from the earth. I ate pizza. I finally beat Kirat in tennis. Mark smashed Burnsy in the face with a burrito 13 times. Burnsy and I made VQ2 and The Interview.

For the first time in my life, I made a par on a par 4 hole. Matt got married. We went to South America and Kansas City.

I even did an in-depth personal evaluation in the form of an individual 2010 census. And Hoagie Central went widescreen.

Let's see...did anything happen in 2011?

Burnsy made some beer. I mailed in a post about Doritos. I got back in to hockey.

Oh yeah, I got a new job, we moved to Denver at 8.5 months pregnant and had a freaking kid.

Once I got to Denver, I discovered green chile. And we started having holidays at our place, which meant I had to cook my first turkey. This happened.

And Hoagie Central went through it's last (to date) redesign.

In 2012, I tried curling for the first time and even made it to the championship game. I saw the Avs win in person for the first time. Mark Fever came to Denver for the first time.

I looked up. I busted out some advanced maths.

Just like with the BCS, I fixed the Electoral College. It will probably be a while before it goes into effect.

I suppose it doesn't seem like much else happened, because I spent a fair amount of time writing my second book.

In 2013, the book came out. Mark came back and I started rating beers. I saw the Avalanche win from the 2nd row. You can even see me holding my monster nachos in the replays.

I ranked pies. I sold -1 books. I spent a good chunk of time creating a full restaurant concept menu. I figured out much home field is actually worth.

The ultimate power of the internet revealed itself. A bunch of Bozos went to San Francisco. I turned 30.

Oh yeah, and we had another freaking kid. Holy crap.

Last year, the Broncos made the Super Bowl which I thought was going to be the worst thing ever but it was kind of the best thing ever. I finally saw a team of mine win a playoff game.

I built a soccer goal for my kids and played a game of indoor soccer.

I spent the summer searching for the best burrito in Denver. And went back to Kansas City for barbecue and a Chiefs' game. I ranked my favorite bands.

I cooked a 5-course dinner. I finally mastered Carbonara and made a cookbook.

And unfortunately, Mrs. Hoagie Central and I decided to get divorced.

This year, I predicted the Super Bowl. I got my first smartphone and Instagram. I ranked even more beers. I went snowboarding once and skateboarding several times.

I went back to Champaign. I got really into board games. I won an award. And had some good laughs. And a team I like actually won a championship.

Here's how the site looks at the moment, in case in changes in the future.

This blog got started because I was pretending to be a sports columnist. I wanted to share my sports opinions with my friends, so I put them on the internet.

And I'm glad I did. Because it transformed into a place where I could share anything. Where I could put up serious political thoughts and dumb videos and a lot of Chiefs and fantasy football garbage that isn't relevant to anyone.

I must give a special thank you to my loyal readers. I know who you are and you know who you are. It means a lot to know that someone is out there, reading my ramblings. It gives my words credence. Even for just a few people, I know that my thoughts have some purpose.

The most interesting thing is something that I didn't expect. I started this to share things with other people, but I'm the one who's benefited the most. As you can see, it's been and continues to be a time capsule of my life. As stupid as it sounds (and I think the word "blog" is incredibly stupid) my life is actually richer for having this blog. It is an incredible record of both big, important moments and silly, little jokes. Something that I can (and do) access from anywhere at any time to remember things that would otherwise be forgotten.

If you're reading this now, thank you. It probably means you've been here from the beginning.