Yep--one year ago today I sat down and started messing with the Google tool that allows any fool to burnish his fool credentials to the world by writing a blog. At the time, I was in the midst of what eventually turned out to be a 7.5 month hiatus from the working world following my retirement from the Navy. While thoroughly enjoying the break, I found myself increasingly strutting about the house lecturing the Kitten and her offspring on politics, social commentary and current events. They were none to amused. I realized that in losing ready-made conversation crucible that had been the wardroom or office for 21 years, I had lost something that I thoroughly enjoyed but was not ready to see gone forever. So I started a blog.
Entry 1 contained four rules that I hope I have followed and enforced: 1)keep it civil 2) keep it clean 3) keep it relevant and 4) keep it coherent. I set out to share my thoughts on politics, world events, economics and pop culture. Along the way, the blog gave birth to the brief, shining star that was "Postcards from the Backbench", Goldwater's Ghost's wonderful blog that showcased his conservative principals and his incredible sense of humor.
Early on, someone asked me if I'd open the site up to contributing authors. My reaction was horror...kinda like a couple inviting a third person in to assume responsibility for raising their children. But as I spent more and more time in front of the computer, scouring the interwebs for material, putting down my thoughts and responding (sometimes) to yours, I came to realize having a few homies in on the project wouldn't be such a bad idea. Now we're a stable of five contributors, with one more still trying to figure out the technology so that he can join in. All I can tell you is that when I open the blog and see an unfamiliar entry--one clearly not written by me or even forgotten in an increasingly frequent senior moment--I dive into it with the excitement of Christmas morning knowing that it will be a pearl of great price simply for having been put there by someone smarter and more eloquent than I.
The site has been visited 36,717 times by 12,207 different people (or more properly, different IP addresses). They spend an average of two minutes and fifty six seconds on the site, and then return to their daily lives in all 50 states and 104 different countries.
Thank you for stopping by, and of course, for clicking those Google Ads! This site is a great pleasure to me, and I hope you find it useful and enjoyable.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
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7 comments:
I couldn't stop myself laughing this morning. I have this picture, actually short movie, of you lecturing two little girls for a lack of warm bodies to lecture.
Wait there are 50 states I thought Obama said 54. I can't keep up,thank you CW for setting the record straight & for a year of interesting reading.
I like to think I traded up.
Congratulations.
Has it only been a year? I don't remember my life before the CW. But then, at my age, I don't remember...well...my age. Seriously, what you do here is not unlike my friend Eddie who plants fields full of strawberries, sweet corn, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, squash and various melons and greens for people to come pick for themselves, year in and year out. He does all this work not for profit (you can't pay him for your harvest), but to bring people together so they can interact and enrich their lives, and his own, through sharing one another's thoughts, experiences and perspectives. Most who meet him think he is just a country bumpkin. I think he is one of the most brilliant and generous people I know. Thank you CW for letting us harvest your well-tended fields as well for the last year. Although I am reminded by my shrinking belt that I am amply addressing my physical nourishment, it is through your hard work that I have made big strides in tending to my intellectual nourishment. Thanks again.
Bravissimo signore Bryan!
You've done a fantastic job and remembered all I taught you. Seriously, it all has been well written and interesting. You are a remarkable young man.
My mind thanks you for the activation of the thought process.
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