Blog Passes a Good-Sized Milestone: 750,000 Visits

This photo went with the blog's most popular post.

This week fromtheeditr.blogspot.com passed another milestone: 3/4 of a million views. That's 750,000 or 1.5 million "eyes," as the marketing people would have it.

This is post number 2,774. The blog began Oct. 16, 2008. This post, from May 8, 2010, "Fat vs. Skinny, Liberal vs. Conservative" is the all-time hit leader with more than 42,000. I cannot explain its popularity, but will guess that the topics of weight and politics, and the picture of the naked skinny woman have something to do with it. All are great in Google searches.

The blog's first entry was this, called either "Rustics" or "Rustics in Charge," depending on which you want. I hadn't yet figured out how to post a headline, so I got two. The post was about perceptions of visiting environmental journalists of the people of our little Valley. It was not a happy post. The second post the next day announced that I was writing a blog. Guess I was too mad to say that the first day.

Anybody who meanders through the archives will note that there have been some style changes as I figured out how to do this. The backgrounds and fonts have changed occasionally, but you won't see that. When I make a change, it goes through the history--or at least I think it does. I'm not looking it up.

Let me also mention that this is not my only blog. I do one for the Roanoke Regional Writers Conference, which I founded, and until last summer or so, I was in charge of the blog for FRONT magazine. 

I've written some meaningful--to me, at least--posts, so it always puzzles me what is popular. The second-leading eyes-on post is this little throwaway about a study showing that dumb guys like big breasts. It was written a year ago in March and right now is the most viewed post for the past month. It has legs. No. 3 is a post about organizing to support the arts (go figure); No. 4 reports on a study detailing the intellectual level of fat women; and No. 5 is a post on the death of my former sports editor, Bill Brill.

Posts have ranged from political (I'm a liberal, if you haven't figured that out yet), to the absurd, to straight news, to photo essays (which I love doing), and just stuff that comes up in the course of a day. The blog is the perfect place for an essayist, which I have been for many years, and heaven knows I wish it had come along earlier. It's a great way to chronicle a life and a family.

I have no idea how long these posts will remain up for viewing, but I'd like to think of them as a legacy, much like a book. I've done the books, too, so I ain't taking chances.

Hope you're enjoying what I'm doing with the blog. And even if you aren't, I am.