In Depth: Rick at RcktMan’s Launching Pad

How old are you and what is your relationship status?
I am 36 years old and I'm single. Very single.

What kind of work do you do?
I work as a graphic artist for a major law firm in Chicago.

What are your hobbies?
I enjoy cooking, music, singing, reading, raising my two cats, travel, bike riding, being with friends, entertaining, and fiddling around with my blog.

Do you have any special skills?
I'd say singing is a special skill for me.

What turns you on? What is your "type"?
A guy's smile and his eyes usually get my heart pounding. That and a nice, firm butt. My type is pretty varied — younger or older, any hair color… always have had a soft spot for blue or green eyes, though.

Anything interesting about you that your readers wouldn't know?
I used to sing semi-professionally in a cabaret/night club. I'd like to get back to doing that again someday.

Tell us about your blog :

Tell us about it's birth?
My blog actually has had two births– I first started doing an online journal in mid-1997 when I first moved to Chicago, and kept it going for about 6 months. I did all of it by myself– there was no such thing as blogging back in those days. I still have all of those original posts and have them up on my root website . The second
birth was in July of 2004 when I started on Blogger as "RcktRamblings." I made the move to WordPress in July of 2005 and moved everything to my domain, and RcktMan's Launching Pad was born. I designed the template in Photoshop and had someone code it– it turned out exactly as I had envisioned it.

Who is it's intended audience?
Anyone and/or everyone. It's definitely gay in its content for the most part, but it's appropriate for just about anyone.

How many daily visitors does it get?
This fluctuates quite a bit. Right now I get only about 125 visitors a day, but in the past I've had upwards of 1500 visitors a day.

If you could sum up your blog in one sentence, what would it be?
My blog is a place for me to communicate with the world, provide my views on current events, and share my sometimes twisted perspectives on living life in these gay times.

If you had unlimited time, budget and staff, how would you change your blog?
I suppose I would hire someone to do promotion of my blog so that more traffic would be fed to it. I would also create and purchase ads wherever I could — maybe even hire a marketing firm to help me correctly do that. But boy, that's a big pipe dream.

How much time a week do you spend on your blog?
Back in the day, I was blogging every day, 5 days a week or more. Now I blog at least 2-3 times a week.

How many blogs do you read weekly? What are your favorites?
Between 5-10: My favorites are Tuna Girl, The Traveling Spotlight, Scott-O-Rama, Zeitzeuge, Palochi, Warm Cookies with a Whiskey Chaser, among many others.

Tell us about your future:

Give us some coming attractions on your blog:
Well, I added a podcast last year that I ended shortly before the end of the year– I'm considering bringing that back in a new way. I really enjoyed podcasting, so if there is some way I can swing it, I'm going to make it work. Other than that, I am still finding my way back out of a major writer's block epsiode. It's going slow, but I think there are some big things around the corner that could shape the future of the blog.  Just wait and see, I guess.

What do you see different in your life two years from now?
I have been notoriously unlucky in love for the past few years… I believe my luck is going to be changing soon. And from that, good things can only come. I hope.