100 K -- and mounting

Last May, this blog hit the 50 k point -- 50,000 hits since April of 2008.


Some time on Wednesday, the odometer rolled over to 100,000 hits since April of 2008.


If the blog was a car, I would be looking for a good trade-in value right now.


In May, I pointed out that unlike FaceBook -- where people you have never met in your life are called "friends" -- the new number does not mean that I now have 100,000 friends. It simply means that over the past eighteen months, 100,000 mouse clicks brought people to this blog -- if only for one brief shining moment.


The caveats I mentioned in May are still true. We bloggers know that the "hits" are not what they seem. But there are some facts:

• 93.7% of the "hits" are the result of Google searches ferreting out that post where I sprinkled the words "naked truth," "youthful indiscretion," and chicken breast" in the hopes of improving my statistics. (For any literalists in the crowd, I made up that number. It very well could be higher. And there is no such post. Don't bother looking. Literary license does not require renewal.)
  
  
• Most "hits" are simply fortuitous. Someone looks for a poem by Billie Collins. I like his poetry, and I have blogged about his work three or four times. But the searcher is looking for something academic, not necessarily the meanderings of a retired Oregonian in Mexico. But if they stayed a little longer, they could have heard about my mother's birthday party. Certainly, a poetic occasion.
  
  
• And, as some readers have commented, anyone who comes back to visit several times during the day (as at least one commenter confessed, perhaps in a fit of Calvinistic guilt) will leave another "hit" on the counter.
  

But I do know the numbers mean one thing. More people are visiting and more people are leaving comments.


My spurious election on where to move (a moving experience) is a good example. Fifty-two comments, and all of them well-spoken and full of wisdom. (I am certain that all is forgiven for those of you who wanted me to adopt a more obvious cultural footprint in my little fishing village -- not to mention the possibility of being my own headline in the local newspaper.)


The one hundred thousand number is a compliment to all of you, who take the time to share a bit of my life on the Mexican coast.


But it also makes me feel like the old guy who sits at the end of the bar in the local tavern. I am just happy to have people stop by and chat.


So, keep on visiting and commenting. Because I continue to love this adventure.