360 degrees

Some of the finest Shul of Rockers (missing: J.J., Benjito, Tamara)

After five and a half years, and 360 posts, it seems that this blog has truly come full circle. When Mr. T and I first came up with the idea of a site called Shul of Rock, we had the goal of crafting a t-shirt empire, with the blog as an afterthought. Instead, it became a blog... and so much more. It has been a repository of original videos, a photo gallery, a love advice column, and a community.

We've laughed together; we've cried together; we've put up with my random online musings together. When we needed comedic love advice, Dr. Love was always there for us.

As I have alluded to in the past, this site helped form a social network for my friends and I to share and discuss things prior to the invention of Mark Zuckerberg's privacy-swiping Facebook empire. It filled a natural need. In the last five years, some of us have completed university degrees, started businesses, ended relationships, started new relationships, become engaged to be wed, married, moved across the world, and embarked on interesting careers. We've come a long way! Who knows what the next five years will bring?

This site will no longer be actively maintained, but it will remain online, with all posts and comments intact. The archive is fully searchable and contains hundreds of interesting posts and images for your perusal. It's a time capsule of the beginning of the 21st century in some ways, with cultural and political insights that will be fun to revisit as time marches on. The YouTube channel will continue to be updated periodically.

I am now putting my efforts into a new website that will serve as a more 'professional blog', with the hope that this could actually benefit my career. It will have longer, researched articles, as well as several dedicated pages featuring other content. When I want to reach my friends, I'll stick to using Facebook. I did pick up random anonymous readers over the years who came and went, and I'll miss having strangers commenting on my thoughts. It was always interesting.

Thank you to the thousands of visitors, but most importantly, thank you to my friends.

In May 2005, I opened the Shul of Rock by writing: "In Hebrew, a shul is known as a 'beit ha'knesset', or house of congregation. It's a place to come together, and a place to learn."

I learned a lot.

Keep on rocking!

Avi