After relying on free, hosted blogging services since June 17, 2001, when I began my blogging efforts on Tripod, I’ve finally taken the plunge and registered a domain name and set up a hosted account at Dreamhost. My reasons for taking this step are varied, but primarily I’ve done it because it gives me more flexibility and power in what I do on my site and with my blog. It will take me a while to implement all the changes I want to make, so please bear with me as I experiment.