Blogiversary to LFD

I just noticed that exactly one year ago yesterday, on January 6, 2008, I started really blogging in earnest, at first on a site that is no longer in existence. Then, on February 28th, as far as I can tell because my atom feed only goes back to March 1st, I started adding to Blogger all the previous posts I'd made while undercover and under the radar. And, from my sidebar, you can see that two very early posts had been made on that earlier site prior to January 6th of last year. It's a wonder I didn't start transferring the earlier posts to Blogger on Leap Day last year, because then my secondary blogger-versary would be February 29th instead of February 28th!

As far as posts go, my style has perhaps changed a bit, or maybe it's just become more variable; I'm not really sure. I do occassionally have much longer, photo-filled posts than I did at the beginning, but photos have always been a major part of this blog, and I expect that aspect to continue.

Gradually, my readership and "hits" have built up quite a bit, such that nowadays I often have 35 to over 60 individual though not unique hits per day (those include mine because sitemeter won't ignore my IP address, I think because my server doesn't assign me the same one all the time). Those numbers are way up from when I first started. Also, I now have 93 feed readers, according to FeedBurner, 44 of which are on Google Reader, according to Google Reader. Those numbers have increased a lot in the last three to four months, partly, I think, because I've expanded my blog reading and commenting to other parts of the science blogosphere. Or, alternatively, maybe it's because I'm just such a swell person! ;)

I've realized a few of my blogging goals for this year, the first of which was to "go public" with my blog by the end of 2008. That goal I achieved way early, because the Geoblogosphere was expanding rapidly in the early days of 2008, and I couldn't wait nearly a year to get in. A second goal I had was to meet some GeoBloggers, at meetings or wherever. I haven't been to many geological meetings this year that weren't mining related, however, but I did succeed recently in meeting two bloggers on a holiday trip: ReBecca Foster and Wayfarer Scientista. ReBecca is a palaeo-geoblogger; it's a bit hard to tell about Wayfarer, since all she will admit to is being an "ologist."

Now, if someone would just pay me to blog full time - I'd do it 8 to 10 hours a day most days of the week - then I'd have all my blogging goals realized. :D

As far as searches that lead to this blog, sitemeter doesn't keep a permanent record, but I have noticed a few strange ones over the year, and early on I was diligent about writing them down because I was so intrigued. Maybe those little pieces of paper are lying around somewhere, maybe not. One persistent search that leads to my LFD blog is "looking for detachment" or "detachment" in any Zen sense of the term. I don't know if I have a few (or any) Zen-ish readers out there because of these searches, but if so, now would be the time to de-lurk. (Apparently, a number of people are looking for detachment!)

Other persistent searches leading to this blog include people who are inordinately interested in mud: they are either trying to get their 4WD vehicle stuck in the mud, or are trying to figure out how to get unstuck; I'm never quite sure which. I can for sure tell you many good ways to get stuck in the mud. There are, however, fewer good ways to get unstuck.

I also get people at this blog who are looking to find out about incest and incest communities! People also consistently want to know what it's like to live in Elko, Nevada, even though the post I made about that was based on a pretty generic north-state email or meme. Someone recently searched for "down to earth style for geologists" and found this blog, but didn't find much about style. People also come to this blog after searching to find out about Middlegate, Nevada, which is apparently more popular than Austin, Nevada! You can also find this blog by searching for information about tanning and spf 30 sunscreen. I also get found by searches for lost gold mines, no matter what state the lost mines might be in, and even if they should be found by "satellite GPS." You can also find this blog by searching for unusual rocks, popular rocks, or faults, take your pick!

Some repeatedly popular posts include a few of the Where in the West series, especially the ones about Fairview Peak, the Black Rock Desert, and Wheeler Peak. Other consistently popular posts are the one about the 1981 OCS moratorium, the one or ones about the Wheeler Peak rock glacier and bristlecones, the ones about the Ruby Mountains and Rye Patch. My Star Trek post is also popular, often found by searches for Spock quotes, silicon lifeforms, or other generic Star Trek searches.

My favorites include some others: my long series about Alaska, starting here and working back, and also including these turbidites; my song North to Alaska; almost anything about highway 8A; and some posts about roadside geology (some of these categories overlap).

So this time, here's to me and LFD!