Tidings of Comfort and Joy

I'm blogging from the lobby of the Elizabethtown, PA Holiday Inn Express (give me complimentary internet access, I give you a free plug.) We are on the way East to visit Prof. W's family for the holidays. I will be pretty much internet in communicado for the week, so this is my sign off and, in case I don't make it back on before 2006, a year-end benediction.

This thing started six months ago simply as my personal howl at the moon. I expected nothing more than that I would write stuff that mattered to me, exorcise the rants rattling my brain and exercise a mind addled by full-time child care. Nothing more. I fully expected to fly under the radar -- hence the cryptic early title.

When I first heard of blogs four or more years ago I thought "Uh-oh. I could get lost there." Little did I know. Being less than a paragon of mental discipline, I thought perhaps I would play at this a bit, then decide it was too much hassle. In fact, it is generally an exercise in mental discipline not to blog. The Akron Pages run about a 2:1 ratio in topic ideas generated versus those that make it to post. I made a big deal out of my 100th post. This is 201.

Meanwhile, quicker than I would have thought possible, I was discovered, blogrolled and blogged about by NEO bloggers like George Nemeth and Bill Callahan. I went to meet-ups and MTB events and have met some good and talented people with the same passion for this wild new medium.

And I have readers. Somewhere between 50 and 70 on typical weekdays; about 45-65 more than I expected. I've struck up email correspondences with two law students who read the PhAQ's and limned Prof. W's -- and my -- identities. The Horses at Psychobilly Democrat and the Akron Pages have founded a burgeoning mutual admiration society. While Mount Laurel New Jersey has stopped reading, a quick shout-out to Harrison County Hospital in Phoenix AZ.

So thanks to everyone. Whether you are a blip on my SiteMeter or a frequent commenter, you have kept me going and made this project a source of pride. Thanks especially to Jill and Daniella for your encouraging comments, to Bill for the early links; to everyone who blogrolled me, but especially Tim who has driven more traffic to the site than anyone; to David Abbott and mystery man John Galt for providing comment grist for my blog-making Voices and Choices posts; and especially to George, the center of gravity of the NEO community that so generously has taken me in.

To my friends, my readers and my lurkers, I wish a very joyous holiday season to you and your families. Unless you are a War on Christmas theorist, in which case I wish you a Most Blessed Winter Solstice.

Couldn't resist.

Happy Holidays.

-scott piePHO