5-Year Blogiversary

Yikes, five friggin' years.

That would be more than one-eighth of my life to be exact. I've been posting to this blog for that long.

So let's look back to why I started this thing, shall we?

Five years ago, we were at the precipice of invading Iraq and we had a year plus to contemplate what happened at the World Trade Center, Pentagon and Shanksville, PA. Now, I've always been a political animal and would send letters to the editor on occassion but this new blogging thing was a revelation. You could post your thoughts and people could respond and tell you what an idiot you are. Pretty cool. Kind of like a bar debate sans the punches, blood and, more importantly, spilled beers.

I originally was a hybrid of Glenn Reynolds and Tim Blair but eventually found my own voice. Until you have your own voice, you're just a parrot like the Monkees copying the Beatles. we remember Davy Jones and Peter Tork but not even remotely as reverently as John, Paul, Ringo and George. So, I developed my own style. I'm no Beatles, more like a Grateful Dead Scarlet-Fire jam that kind of goes off the rails and then somehow pulls back into the present.

Anyway, many thanks to those who've linked including Glenn and Tim numerous times, Charles Johnson, Jeff Goldstein, the dudes at Hot Air and the myriad other great sites that I visit daily and pilfer nuggets from.

I also want to thank those of you who actually read my mindless drivel, without you I would be writing for the ether. My father-in-law, the guy I trained in D.C., a girl I worked with years ago and a lady named Terri who checks in and lets me know when I'm right, wrong or just, well, an idiot.

I've written to this site nearly daily over the last five years except when I didn't have the time and when AOL actually paid me for my opinions in 2006-2007. Getting paid to do what I love was indeed sweet and the $500+ a month, plus a bigger audience was ego-building to be sure. But the money left and I returned home.

Since then I've had some link success and have gotten more than 28,000 hits over two months. Startling to me but a pittance to the aforementioned Glenn, Tim and Charles. Still, it's good to know that my words have been read by many who either agreed, disagreed or didn't have an opinion.

Anyway, I'm rambling. Thanks to everyone who has made this site what it is. My wife deserves just as much of the thanks because she hasn't divorced me...yet. I guess I should do what Glenn did, get my wife to blog.

I think all who read my writing are great if somewhat off-kilter but respect and think all of you are pretty damn cool. I guess what I want to say is THANKS.

Update: Thanks Tim and cheers. I would have no problem with Malkovich but that dude in the Pope hat just may cause my Akita to attack as he's not seen anything like that. I should have mentioned when i said I mimicked Tim and Glenn that I have less than half the wit of the former less than half the brains of the latter.

Not sure when Tim linked, Aussie time throws me off. I think it's somewhere around a week from next Thursday there as we speak.