Six Years and Still Ticking

It just occurred to me that back on January 20, 2005, six years ago to date, I posted for the first time to a blog site which I named: "It Occurred To Me."

For the better part of those six years the hammer in my profile has been relentlessy pounding on the head of one stubborn nail.

Viewing myself as the hammer and the keyboard as the nail, it has been an on-going and enjoyable project. This, my 2088th posting, is intended as a reflection of what this site means to me - what it began as and what it has become.

Below the blog title, it reads:

My feelings, beliefs, and/or ideas about just about anything. These may not agree with you, and that is okay. Nothing I say or imply is meant to offend. Allow me to hammer home my points. Satire is my cause and humor is my sword and pen.

I've never felt a need to rewrite those words, because that mantra, if you will, still holds true. That's not to say that my writings have not evolved. They have. As for my feelings, beliefs, and/or ideas - perhaps they have been at least ... tweaked ... by an ever-changing world.

There have been times that I've felt as if I were on the brink of burnout - not only from suffering from bouts of writer's block, but from having my head so full of ideas that nothing could be committed to a post!

It was at those times when the creative juices weren't flowing that I began to "harvest" material from the web to post here. When using this "copy-and-paste" method of plagiarism, I have always tried to give credit to the source either by hyperlink or by mention of a name. Of course this isn't always possible when the material is received in an e-mail, as the source is often omitted.

This past weekend my site meter hit 500,000! Although I had been aware that number would soon be hit, when I saw it I said to myself, "Wow! That's a half-million visits to my site." Applying a little math to the numbers, that means that over those six years, I've been averaging a little over 315 hits per day!

To those 500,000+ visitors - yes, I realize that many of those are return visitors - THANK YOU! I must be doing something write right.

It catches my attention ... it relaxes my mind ... it inspires me ... watching my kitten play with some red yard.

Really, readers, if that was my kitten, do you think I'd be sitting here typing, trying to compose this narrative?

If you are offended by that picture ... remember that satire is my cause and humor is my sword and pen.

Yes, much of my work is of an adult nature. I can only assume that most of the readers who visit here are adults. I've poked fun at religion and do not pretend to be pious. I've kicked literary sand in the faces of politicians without showing partisan favoritism. Some of my posts have had me walking on thin ice between being a gentleman and a chauvinist. While not bigoted, I have thrown some jabs at ethnic groups.

What will the seventh year bring? I started this blog to be a collection of humor, and I intend to keep the focus in that area.

Having said that, since July of 2006, with the posting of the short story, Talking To the Walls, I have posted 12 other works of fiction with a 14th in progress. While I'm not sure exactly in length (number of words) what constitutes a short story and a novella, my works of fiction probably fall somewhere between the two.

There will come a time, when I feel I have built up a sufficient body of work, that I will explore the idea of publishing these stories. (I think it will be sooner than later, especially now that I'm retired.)

If you've read into the last paragraph that I have more stories in my head - you'd be right. I might even consider drafting a few stories for publication and not post them here.

In closing, I hope that no matter the content, I will be still be blogging whenever it occurs to me, for many more years to come.

№ 2088