Seven years and counting

Seven years ago, March 19, 2010, this blog was born. I’ve done fairly involved anniversary posts before, but I’ve occasionally let the day slide with nary a peep. 

This will be one of them in-between posts; long enough to bother some, and not covering enough to satisfy the curiosity of others. 

We begin with two versions of a photo from our 2008 Fall colors tour; one as shot, and one modified by Topaz Impression Plugin. 

. . . and continue with a few statistics about this here blog.

Seven years translate into 84 months, or 2,557 days, or 61,368 hours, or 3,682,080 minutes, or 220,924,800 seconds. Mind you, these numbers are based on the assumption the day is over and passed. If you are reading this on the 19th, those numbers are slightly inflated.

What transpired during all them seconds? Well, I got older. Uglier, too. Perhaps, meaner. But also:

This is the 1,651st blog post. I have 1,082 followers. I have an additional 19 e-mail followers (people who don’t have blogs). Before people get too awed by my horde of followers, know only about ten or so readers comment with any regularity. As far as actual visitors . . .  

. . . roughly 32% of people who see the blog actually visit. 

What does that mean? I’ll tell you, but first another couple of photos. 

These photos will resonate more with people in the Southern hemisphere as they head into their fall season . . . 

Anyway, 32% . . . it means that for each ten visitors (readers), only three actually came to the blog itself. None of that tells me how many people read what I write. I suspect mighty few. Most visitors read my blog via the Reader. The Reader does not usually show the complete post, although it currently does. Meaning, most people just look at the featured photo and a few paragraphs at the beginning of each post.

Here is the breakdown of views and visitors over the last seven years:

I’m reasonably certain — as opposed to “pretty sure” — many readers are now ready for another set of photos as all these numbers don’t mean squat to them. 

Again, two versions of the same photo, the second one treated with Impressions. 

A loose goal for this blog — aside inflating my already megaginormous ego — is getting at least one view from each country in the world. 

Here’s the current situation . . . 

The Americas are nearly there, but Cuba and the Falklands still resist my considerable charm. 

I’ve conquered Europe and the Russian Federation, but Asia has a few holdouts . . . North Korea is apparently busy with something besides reading my blog. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan just plain don’t like me. 

The African Continent seems overly indifferent to my goal. The only thing making sense is that they are boycotting me. They should know by now that boycotting does not work and it especially won’t work on me. I’ve extended the proverbial olive branch, but the gesture was not reciprocated. Sad. 

There are a few other notable holdouts. Greenland continues to rebuff any attempt toward diplomacy and an exchange of ideas and goods. Papua New Guinea — a place I had completely forgotten even existed — has been depriving itself both from my photography and amazing fiction. Not to mention, my insightful comments on the human condition (currently, fornicated). 

Lastly, I don’t know what’s up with Svalbard. Technically under Norwegian rule, it has not followed Norway’s example of delighting in that which is me. Their loss, I suppose.

Greenland . . . sure would like to get Greenland, you know, before it melts away.

The World of Stuff Readers map on the sidebar gives a better breakdown of the visitors, but the records only go back to October of 2015, when they changed their site. They were supposed to load the older data, but so far they have not. Those maps give you the ability to choose the time period but to also “zoom in” to individual countries. and states and show the approximate location (based on the ISP) of the visitors. It only counts visitors. Note that by default, the view that comes up is for the current month. You can change the range of dates to your liking . . . if at all interested. 

Here are another couple of photos . . . 

There are two other metrics I used to check and report on . . . the Global and US rank and how much the site is worth. 

The 2015 ranking had me at 6M and 754K respectively for the ranking. Unfortunately, I could only get the global rank vor this year . . . 

So, I improved 4M from last year but dropped 1.4M from two years ago. I guess I am both happy and sad. Or, maybe, I don’t care. 

I have to say that because my Google Page Rank dropped from 2/10 to 0/10. Zero. Ouch!

However, the worth of my blog went up a bit. It was $21 in 2015, and now . . . 

This calls for a celebratory burst of photographs! Five different versions of the same photo . . . combined total: $139.

Can’t make my mind up as to which of the next two I like best . . .

These next two show more extreme post-processing using a combination of Impression and Glow plugins from Topaz. 

And so we come to the end of yet another post. I’m sure this has been boring for most, but it helps me keep track of my year-to-year failure to engage the unwashed hoards despite the liberal use of both photos and words. 

My words still consistently fall well short of my photos when it comes to drawing readers to the site. 

Speaking of photos, you can click on the photos for a larger version. You can also go to the SmugMug gallery HERE.

Plus, there will be a gallery at the end of the post. That’s for the few readers who prefer to bypass my words . . . and, as I write that, it occurs to me this notice might have been more useful to such people if positioned at the beginning of the post. 

Here are my last two photos . . . 

Occasionally, I come across a song that gets my attention. This is *gasp* Country Western, something I don’t normally listen to but I happened to hear it in a concert broadcast on PBS. 

A reincarnation song, as far as I can tell, but I like the music. Of the four, I think Waylon has the best voice, at least in this version. 

OK, here’s the gallery . . . 

That’s it. This post has ended . . . except for the stuff below.

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Note: if you are not reading this blog post at DisperserTracks.com, know that it has been copied without permission, and likely is being used by someone with nefarious intention, like attracting you to a malware-infested website.  Could be they also torture small mammals.

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Please, if you are considering bestowing me recognition beyond commenting below, refrain from doing so.  I will decline blogger-to-blogger awards.   I appreciate the intent behind it, but I prefer a comment thanking me for turning you away from a life of crime, religion, or making you a better person in some other way.  That would mean something to me.

If you wish to know more, please read below.

About awards: Blogger Awards
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Note: to those who may click on “like”, or rate the post; if you do not hear from me, know that I am sincerely appreciative, and I thank you for noticing what I do.

. . .  my FP ward  . . . chieken shit.