Where Did Everybody Go?

Has it really been that long? Hmmm, guess it has.

Well, I suppose if there’s nothing happening on stage, there’s no reason for the audience to wait around… Guess I’ll have to work on that.

Journals & Blogs

I never wrote in a journal, never kept a diary, not seriously anyway, until 1998. Blogging was still several years away but 1998 was the year of The Ice Storm, the year my mother had a stroke, and the year I turned thirty-five, which I sometimes refer to as the year I was finally old enough to be President but was smart enough to know it would never happen. Those of you who were in Maine at the time know which storm I mean. And, in time, we recovered from the storm as my mother recovered from her stroke. But I didn’t completely recover from journal writing – almost, but not completely.

For about ten years I wrote pretty faithfully, often several times a week. My writing became part of an evening ritual, especially on Sunday nights. I would sit at my desk listening to St. Paul Sunday, Pipedreams, and With Heart and Voice on Maine Public Radio. I enjoyed the act of writing, putting ink on paper. At the time I was much more into fountain pens and writing was as much an aesthetic exercise as anything. And I’ve got both larger bound books, small Moleskine notebooks, spiral bound and other notebooks, some full and others mostly empty because I got them when I didn’t have any of my other journals or notebooks with me to write in.

Pardon Me While I Change….

If you are a regular reader (if I have any regular readers), you will probably see the theme, colors, header, etc. changing a few times over the next few days while I play with a few and decide what I like. If you see a particular theme you think works, or one that doesn’t, and maybe a header you like (or not), please feel free to let me know. Try to note the theme’s name (identified at the bottom of the page) and the header image.

Thanks for your patience and input.

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys* prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 5,400 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Thank you to all who visited, read, followed, and/or commented on Rummaging About in 2011. Hope to see you, for you to see more from me, in 2012. Happy New Year!

*No actual monkeys were used, and no animals were harmed in the writing of this blog post.

Off the Cliff

Any reason, aside from the obvious, why this site’s weekly hits have gone from 500-600 to barely more than 100? Just wondering.

Skewed

This is usually a pretty quiet place, with about fifty-ish views a day, nothing too exciting.  In the days leading up to the inauguration, though, visits about doubled, and then dropped off just as quickly, as though the excitement bubbled over into everything else and then we had to collectively sleep it off.  Still, it made for pretty predictable daily stats, and the scale of the graph was narrow enough that even a couple of views could make it look like a big day.

Until January 30th, anyway.

January 30th CNN.com ran a story about Rudy Giuliani saying that all those obscene executive bonuses (paid for with taxpayer dollars, you understand) were what kept the economy going, especially for restaurants and department stores in NYC.  It was more than I could stand and I ranted about it, with my link to the story landing it on the CNN Politics page.  371 views that day (yeah, yeah, I know – stop laughing up your sleeve over there), 297 of them on that one story, and 27 comments. It was a big day for me and now it just seems, well, you know… quiet.

I guess you just never know what’s going to strike a nerve.  Except now my daily stats graph really illustrates how little usually goes on around here.  At least until January 30th drops off the graph in about three more weeks.  Amazing how addictive those page views are.

The Themes, They Are A-Changin’

Inspired by the New Year’s overhaul over at BrianKaneOnline, I’ve been playing with the themes available to beginners like me at WordPress.  Don’t be surprised if the look keeps changing for a bit.  Eventually I’ll settle on something.

Off the Air

The latter part of May and early June are particularly crazy times, both at home and at work.  So, I’m really not off the air for good, you see.  It’s more like having concluded my broadcast day and taking a breather.

What?  You don’t remember when TV stations used to sign off for the night?  Well, now I feel really old.

Thanks a lot.

GEICO Caveman Defeats Giuliani

Since posting about the possibility that cavemen had and used language, my prehistoric friend has come to account for nearly 20% of all the traffic to this blog.  With numbers like that the GEICO caveman would have beat Rudy Giuliani in the Florida primary.  Not enough to be a serious candidate this time, but I think he’s setting up a run for president in 2012 (the caveman, I mean – Giuliani? not so much).  You don’t think so?  Check out this issue ad.

SPAM!

Only four days it took before my site got spammed.  I feel so special.

On a more serious note, hacking and identity theft have hit uncomfortably close to home.  We’ve had a rash of people having mail stolen out of their mailboxes.  Credit card transfer checks have been used fraudulently, causing innumerable headaches with businesses, credit card companies, credit rating agencies, and law enforcement agencies.  And I found out my account on eBay had been hacked – fortunately, I don’t keep bank or credit account information there.

Sheesh.