I started blogging eight years ago today, apparently without much forethought. because, in the lyrics of that Rufus featuring Chaka Khan song, “Once you get started, it’s so hard to stop.” I’ve managed to blog every single day here.
To be sure, occasionally it was just a single YouTube video, but even then, it almost always had a soupçon of contextual verbiage. (Here’s a question for you all – how does one type a ç from a standard US typewriter? The one in the previous sentence I cut and pasted.)
One of the ways I have maintained whatever level of sanity I have is that I don’t blog here nearly as often as I used to. Some days early on, I would blog here more than once a day. I’ve tried very hard not to do that anymore.
The table below shows how many times each month I wrote posts numbering greater than the number of days in that month. I didn’t start until May 2 of 2005; thus those Xs for January-April.
2005 X, X, X, X, 3, 10, 18, 28, 22, 17, 14, 8 = 120
2006 10, 5, 9, 4, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 1 = 31
2007 0, 0, 3, 1, 1, 2, 0, 1, 2, 3, 1, 1 = 15
2008 0, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 3, 3, 0, 1, 0, 0 = 9
2009 0, 0, 1, 3, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 = 5
2010 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 = 2
2011 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 2, 1 = 8
2012 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 = 0
Zeros for 2013 thus far.
Boy, that summer of 2005, when I probably had no one READING my blog except my friend Fred and his wife Lynn, I sure seemed to have had a LOT to say.
Of course, what I’ve done, when I ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY had to write something else, when I have something set in this blog, is to try to post it elsewhere, perhaps my Times Union blog, especially if it was something specific to the Albany area, e.g., or the New York State Data Center blog if it involved geeky stats.
Since not writing at all has taken place now and then – life DOES get in the way – having a reserve of posts is a good strategy. I had eight fewer completed blog posts in the queue on the last Monday in February of this year than I did on the last Monday in January, whittling down my reserve from 31 to 23, and it’s pretty much stayed there. Now you might think 23 is good, but it’s not the stuff that I can, or want, to post in the next 23 days. It’ll be a post I’d rather put up on a particular day (Flag Day, the anniversary of my father’s death, ABC Wednesday, or the like).
What I wrote last year seems more likely now than ever. After I hit 10 years as a daily blog, a goodly run, it will become…not a daily blog. (Probably. Maybe. Who knows?) Certainly, I’ll write three or four or five times a week at least. Heck, in October of 2015, I might make it seven days a week for a couple of weeks, because the info contained therein will be of interest for only a few college friends I knew 40 years earlier. Yes, I know what I’m going to blog about in October of 2015. I don’t always know what I’m going to blog about in May 2013, but two and a half years from now…
One other thing: I used to timestamp my blog posts between 4:30 and 5:30 a.m., Eastern standard time, for no other reason than it gave the impression that I got up every morning to craft these words of wisdom. Now that I’m in my 60s, I’ve decided to post between 6:00 and 6:59; the minute part is determined by the minute when I publish. Since this is fed to my Twitter feed and my Facebook page, I theorize, correctly or not, that more people will see it. Of course, if I REALLY wanted more people in North America to see it, I’d post at noon, but obviously, this is not based on REAL rational thought.