Today is the tenth anniversary of my first post.
When I started this blog, I was afraid it would end up being a shiny new toy that I played with for a while, then got bored with and set to one side.
(Great. Now I’m depressed.)
3,652 days. 4,499 posts. That averages out to slightly more than one per day. I think that takes this blog out of “shiny new toy” status, and more into the realm of “my favorite GI Joe — you know, the good ones, not that Cobra crap — with the Kung Fu grip“.
(Great. Now I’m even more depressed.)
But I’m not bored yet. (Or tired.)
I’m not proud of everything I’ve written. But I’ve written some stuff I’m proud of. And I’ve always tried to do what I think is the right and fair thing.
I have discovered a few things:
- The posts that I consider to be short throw-away ones get more attention than the longer ones I put thought into. I believe this is a general principle of blogging that doesn’t have a name. Yet.
- I’m shocked at how much traffic the list of city council members gets.
- I seem to have become the go-to guy for obituaries. This gets depressing sometimes, especially when the obituary is for a relatively young person, and most especially when they’ve committed suicide. But I like calling out the people who have meant something to me for some reason, or the people I’ve never heard of who led interesting lives, or the war heros…and, yes, even the criminals who finally went to their just reward.
I thought about doing a thank you list, but every time I do one, there’s always someone I miss. I do want to single out Lawrence and Borepatch as the two bloggers who drive the most traffic here.
There are some people who were early supporters of this blog who have drifted away, perhaps because of political differences, and I regret that. There are some people who seem to have drifted away for personal, non-political reasons, who I miss terribly. There are some people who were early influences on this blog who I’ve drifted away from. And there’s at least two people that I know of who died (died).
Those of you who would be on a thank-you list, you know who you are, and thank you. To absent friends.
Let’s see if I can keep it up for ten more years. I plan to: I’ve got another gun porn post that I’m working on that combines a couple of things. Namely: what I bought at the S&WCA Symposium (a popular question among my friends) and, believe it or not, childhood nostalgia. I’m not sure when this is going to go up, as I have to take more photos first. But at least this one will be shorter than the last one.
I’m also thinking about doing a round-up review of some books I finished recently. I already talked about the Baatz book, but there are two more I’m thinking about covering: one that I liked with small reservations (mostly that I wanted more out of the book than the author was willing to give to his perceived target audience) and one that I found disappointing due to the author’s moralizing. If I can get to those this week I will.
Meanwhile, you can look forward to more obit watches, more random news clippings, more gun crankery, and (of course) a whacky green alien that only I can see (but who will be making some guest posts).
Drinks are on me and the alien next time we’re in the same place at the same time.
