10 Years of Blogging

So, I started blogging 10 years ago today. (Just about at this exact moment, too.) We're on the road today--driving from Mississippi to Florida as part of a family spring break vacation, if our prior plans haven't been derailed--so this pre-written and scheduled post will have to do.

My very first blog post is here. (Or nearly; Blogspot won't quite let me connect to it directly. It's that old.)

My single most popular and commented upon post is here. (Second place is here. See a pattern?)

My most controversial and criticized post is here. (Second place is here.)

Don't know what else to say beyond that. My slowest year on the blog was 2006, the year I thought the life I'd hoped I was building for myself and my family through academia and teaching and writing (and blogging) had come to an end...and then surprising started up again. My busiest year was 2011, which the year I finally ended the Friday Morning Videos feature, which I think was one of the main reasons anyone ever read me anyway.

Don't how long I'll keep it up. If Google Reader can go away, perhaps Blogspot will too, and would I actually care enough to shift to another platform after all this time? Maybe. But maybe not.

Some of you other bloggers have been out there, occasionally checking out my perhaps sometimes insightful, but usually just belabored and silly, yammering for a long, long time. You have my thanks, especially since many of you are an inspiration to me. Whatever you do, you do it better than me, and I hope you'll keep doing it, because it teaches me and it goads me (in a good way). It's made me laugh and think and maybe even become a tiny bit wiser. To whatever extent I've been able to contribute to any of the same for anyone else, I'm grateful.