100,000

Sometime last night, this blog's odometer rolled over the 100,000 unique visitors mark. Not bad for a mere two years of blogging. I had originally hoped to reach this milestone by the end of my first year, but I learned a few lessons along the way that slowed the pace.

Lesson 1: Spamming blog links on forums earns you a bad name, but it brings in the hits. It is a great tool for pissing off a few people; not that I would ever want to do that. In a vain attempt at recognition, I spammed away early on, but I think I've grown up a bit since then.

Lesson 2: Slashdot and Digg hits are great for the visitor count and for lengthy comment sections. However, they really open my opinions -- that I most likely posted while half asleep -- to criticism from the Internet at large. The average Internet user doesn't understand that an opinion is a person's own belief in something, and that it doesn't change just because someone has a different one.

Lesson 3: It is return visitors, and consistent comment leavers, that make me sleep better at night.

So, a big THANK YOU to everyone that has helped make this blog what it is... which I'm sure we'll figure out sometime soon.