Welcome to ErikTomrenWrites, the writing website of Erik Tomren! On this website you will find current (and historical) articles on a variety of topics: Seattle and the Pacific Northwest, travel and tourism, horror films, grunge rock, museum exhibits, politics, opinion pieces, and much more. Basically, anything I find to be of interest I may write an article about it someday, or I already have. Which brings me to an important point about ErikTomrenWrites. This website will not only feature new and current articles, but some of the material could be as old as the year 2000, or even earlier. I have been writing that long, and I am proud to feature my work here.

ErikTomrenWrites as an Archive

But before I discuss my own writing, I would like to briefly touch on one reason behind the mission of this site, that of preserving thoughts and ideas. I feel it’s important that people maintain a record of the past, whether it be events of the time, or beliefs held when you were younger, or reviews of attractions or tours that may not even exist anymore. All of this older material contributes to the greater good in my opinion.

I am a firm believer in contributing to archival and user-generated sites such as Wikipedia, Discogs, IMDB, and the Wayback Machine. I also find it worthwhile if people write on review sites such as yelp!, Amazon, Travel Advisor or CruiseCritic. Another way people can contribute is to archive their own family history through sites such as Ancestry, or they can participate in oral histories and other educational projects. Even maintaining a public social media presence on Facebook or Twitter can be something useful for future generations, as long as the information is archived correctly.

So much knowledge is lost in this world on an everyday basis, and as the Internet expands exponentially much of the info will be lost forever. This is why I urge people to document their own histories, or anything they find to be important, before it’s too late. I think of ErikTomrenWrites in much the same way; this website will serve as an archive of my life and my thoughts and experiences, but it will also hopefully be of interest to people in the future as well.