Decennial

Ten years ago today, I jumped head-first into the wonderful world of blogging -- posting my first words on this blog.  It was a short post, announcing the arrival of my new blog, accompanied by what has now become an annual tradition on this date -- the boy on a haystack.

A very bright teenager from Colorado, on whose blog I had recently commented, left me my first comment.  He suggested that I write something "more profound," something worthy of his youthful critique.  And so my second post compared the waning days of the Bush administration with the rule of Big Brother in Orwell's 1984.

We are often blessed by our inability to see ahead to the horrors of the future.

Anyway, Confused Ideas has flourished, in its own small way, over the decade.  Daily readership reached a peak in 2012 and 2013, and has gradually declined since.  I have no idea why.

Over the past year or so, I've noticed that readers tend to come onto the blog and read a number of posts at the same time, rather than hitting on a particular post by use of a search engine.  Therefore, in looking over the past year, it's difficult to pick dramatic popular favorites.  But some posts did receive more hits than others -- I'll leave it to social scientists to determine their attraction.

And so -- this year's stats.  Over the past twelve months, I published 102 posts, the highest number by far since 2011. 

In absolute terms, the post that received the highest response was a description of my "adventure" taking the passenger ferry from downtown Seattle to Alki Point in West Seattle.   Almost as popular was a post suggesting that Sound Transit install turnstiles on its light rail system, to deter scofflaws from not paying their fares.

Other posts, in no particular order, that seemed to receive an unusually large number of hits compared with others published in the same time frame were -- ones expressing fear of the new Trump administration; reviewing the novel Lincoln in the Bardo; recalling the childhood horror of receiving inoculations at school; describing a hike on Rampart Ridge near Mount Rainier; waxing nostalgic over fireworks; describing my cross-country hike in Yorkshire; denouncing Brexit; regaling readers with a description of waking up with a bat flying around my bedroom; admiring a chamber music performance; and reviewing a novel about life in India written by a teenaged Anglo-Indian (Ruskin Bond).

No real pattern, is there?  This is not a blog with a focus.  A little something for everyone.  Which is one reason (among many) why this blog does not rank high on the best blog lists.  Although it should.

And so, head held high and with no change in policy forthcoming, we storm into our second decade.  Thanks for reading!