Why, Dear Boy, Why - REVISITED

            One year ago I wrote this. Looking back, my first post was short, boring, and pretty lame (at least this one isn't short, right). My statement about why I’m writing is still mostly true, and the content is still holding with what I originally planned (which is basically no plan). On this anniversary, I think it’s as good a time as any to address my current thoughts about the blog and look back on what it accomplished over the last year.

            I’m still using this blog as a vehicle for all my theories, opinions, and ramblings as originally intended, but I’ve noticed that sharing isn’t as important as I imagined. Soon after I started, I realized that this blog is not reader friendly. With frequent and random changes in both tone and subject, there isn’t really anything here to build a serious audience around. Others can probably find some value in here, but the real person this blog is for, is me. I’m using writing as a way to collect my ideas. Putting my thought down in words has helped me to better understand subjects ranging from what I enjoy about my favorite things to aspects of my personal philosophy.  I’ve also learned a lot from the research that I do for posts (you can never know enough Jeff Goldblum facts). Any sharing is still great, and I would be happy to hear other’s opinions and counter-theories (also let me know if any links are broken), but I am more than willing to keep writing without all that. What I don’t want this blog to become is a shrine to my own intellectual narcissism, where I can worship my own ideas, but it might already be too late for that so whatever. It also just happens to be fun to write and I enjoy the practice and opportunities to think about new things.

            Some people do seem to be viewing this thing, so let’s talk about them. After one year I have just over 2,000 hits, which is less impressive than it sounds since I believe that vast majority of those hits don’t involve anything being read. Spam visits seem to be a fairly common thing, so a large fraction of views can be chocked up to these questionable occurrences. My next main source of hits is from Google image searches. My Moonraker posts are a veritable goldmine of image search destinations, but some of the traffic doesn’t come from images I’ve collected myself, which I feel kind of bad about. The pictures I used in my John Stockton post, and oddly, the tennis dress from the Relationships post get a lot of hits, but I just took them from Google images. I don’t know if there is some sort of internet search “nepotism” or something going on where Google prefers to direct searches to associated sites like blogger, but I feel a little guilty for stealing traffic from more original image sources. Surprisingly, some of my traffic is actually from people reading this stuff, and I'm happy about that. My lone subscriber happens to be my best friend, and my only other know faithful reader is my mom, plus I get some odd traffic from other family and friends. Since this blog is a good window into my mind, I understand how people who know me can find it valuable (it’s also a good list of discussions that I would be willing to have). Beyond all the pageviews mentioned previously I would be willing to estimate that upwards of FIVE other people have viewed, read, and enjoyed some of my writing. You can find anything on the internet, including people who like to read made up duck facts, and I’m glad to have them.

            This will be my 45th post, which is a number that I can accept for my first year. Topics that were addressed include; Ducks, Dinosaurs, Dolphins, Hermaphrodites, Robots, Religion, Philosophical Zombies, and some various auto-biographical garbage. A few posts (eight) were only Top Tens, which are kind of half-assed and I don't know if they should really count as full post as they don't really involve much writing, but whatever. I still have mixed feelings about the Top Tens, and they might undergo some style changes in the future (still probably won't contain ten things though). Another thing I'm undecided on is self reference, since free standing essays would be nice, but other posts are often related and have good support material. I love links so much that the self reference will likely stay. My current goals are to write posts in some styles other than the excited fanboy (the dolphin post being an attempt at this), and I might try some more serious philosophical essays (but not too serious). I still have plenty of topics that I want to cover and don't plan on narrowing my focus any time soon. The variety is what makes it fun for me, and I don't like to beat any subject to death, so that there is always room for more thought. A weekly schedule is something that I'm hoping to maintain in the future, and another thing on the To Do List is figure out what I want to do with my Quotes List page. Other than that I think things will probably continue as they've been.

            Well, one year in, I consider the experiment of writing my own blog a success, and plan on persisting. New things that I want to try in year two is video entries, and maybe some stuff based on drawing. Let the blogging continue.