I’ve been blogging for about six and a third years, now. In the world of blogs, I’m not Methuselah, but I was a few classes behind him in high school.<\/p>\n
This blog has “succeeded” far beyond my wildest dreams; I’m around 2,000 unique visits a day (according to my server logs – which is down from the 3,000 I got a few years ago, but a fair chunk of that was hits on spam comments, which are largely gone now), with big surges on occasion. And as I’ve said for years, the rewards are even greater than the traffic; I’d still do the blog if I still had the 10-20 daily readers I had in the summer of 2002.<\/p>\n
I’ve gotten a lot of great reactions, of course; recognition, fans of all kinds, and that feeling of satisfaction you get from doing something you enjoy, well enough to put your name on it with at least some <\/em>pride. And of course, the blog has opened up things in my life that had been closed for a long, long time – since Twenty Years Ago Of course, not everyone’s a fan. I have my critics; when they make a good point – and they frequently do, because let’s face it, I’m no Rhodes scholar – I appreciate it and learn from it (or try to). I have my detractors – a few people out there who just plain don’t like me or my blog. They don’t bother me especially; if I want their opinion, I’ll grant them the right to have one [*].<\/p>\n In fact, in six years and change of doing this blog, there’s really only one criticism that’s ever really rankled me; “Your blog used to be good, but it’s not what it used to be”.<\/p>\n Now, it doesn’t rankle me because of the implied criticism of the blog; the point pretty much invariably accompanies some sort of political screed. That’s fine.<\/p>\n On the other hand – no! The blog is not <\/em>what it used to be! I’m not who I used to be<\/em>! The only blogs that never, ever change are the ones that either publish five posts and go silent, the ones on some subject that never changes, or the ones written by groups so big that changes are swallowed up in the law of averages.<\/p>\n The last six years of my life have been a trip; rewarding, gruelling, joyful, excruciating, happy, depressed, fun and a freaking deathmarch – sometimes simultaneously. When I started the blog, my kids were nine and ten years old; today they’re 15 and 16. Since 2002, I’ve been a contractor at six companies, and am finally an employee at a place I think I like an awful lot. I’ve had dozens of first dates (and not a few second third and twentieth ones), a few breakups that were worthy of country-western songs (and one that was probably more speed-metal)…<\/p>\n …and there’s just no way on earth <\/em>that anyone can do all that and not have something<\/em> change. Usually for the better, sometimes not, but always just a tad<\/em> different.<\/p>\n My politics are mostly the same; I’m a conservative. Some things have morphed; I’m less accepting of gay marriage than I was, but a stronger supporter of civil unions (and getting government the hell out of the marriage business). I still oppose capital punishment, but I’ve morphed from supporting concealed carry and the right to self defense to supporting mandatory gun ownership for the law-abiding and “make my day” laws. (I’m being tongue in cheek. Mostly).<\/p>\n So here’s a word for the wise; if you want to take a ding at me, I’m happy and not a little proud to tell ya “you’ve changed” really isn’t what you’re looking for.<\/p>\n [*] Simulated hubris performed by a professional in a closed thread. Do not attempt.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve been blogging for about six and a third years, now. In the world of blogs, I’m not Methuselah, but I was a few classes behind him in high school. This blog has “succeeded” far beyond my wildest dreams; I’m around 2,000 unique visits a day (according to my server logs – which is down […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mitch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2646\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Today<\/strike>, in fact; my “radio career”, a place in politics that I kind of enjoy – you know. The usual.<\/p>\n