My 2nd Blogiversary

Monday October 3 will officially mark my two year venture into the blogosphere. 

I started out blogging via  Blogger/Blogspot.com.  The web address that time was prezeedente.blogspot.com (which, if you visit, automatically brings you here now).  My first post as a blogger was on the Rush Limbaugh/Donavan McNabb ‘controversy,’  an ‘issue’ which was much ado about nothing (and incidentally, yet another example of a Republican talking about race issues and being blasted because of it) under close examination, similar to the Bill Bennett "controversy" we are reading about today. 

Liberal media bias combined with Democratic hypocrisy on any number of issues, along with my passion about conservatism were the big reasons I started blogging.  The blogger I read most at that time prior to my starting my own was Andrew Sullivan.  I no longer read Andrew’s blog, but I do give him some of the credit for inspiring me to start blogging about the issues.

For the first ten months of blogging – which I did on blogspot – I didn’t know that much about  how to run a successful blog.  I had the trackbacks and comments features via Haloscan but I rarely got comments and never got trackbacks.  I don’t think I sent a single trackback those first ten months, either.  In fact, I don’t think hardly anyone knew I existed.  I decided to go for a more polished look with a domain name in August of 2004 with the help of Lisa at Elegant Webscapes and I’m so glad I did.  I can’t tell you what having a domain name and a new look did for me in terms of really wanting to turn this into a successful blog.

Even after getting the domain name and new designs, though, I still didn’t know my way around the blogosphere that well and had a series of ups and downs for the first half of my second  year – where I was considering whether or not I should continue blogging at all.  There were time issues involved and not only that, but I think about 20-40 people were visiting here a day and it was making me wonder if this was something I really wanted to do.  It wasn’t until June of this year that I finally decided that this was something I wanted to continue to do, because whether I had 20 readers or 20,000, I was blogging about what I felt was important and if only 20 people found it important, that was ok too.  That’s one of the things you learn over time when you blog: if you blog based only on what you think others want to read rather than what you think is important, you might as well get out of it. 

So with that decision in mind, I’ve gone forward and had a great summer of blogging and good start to the fall.  I’ve got a good group of readers and commenters here who I enjoy conversing with, even if I don’t have as much time to do that as I used to.  And though I know there is some hate out there in the blogosphere directed towards this blog, it’s miniscule compared to the volume of hate mail that some bloggers receive.  The hate email and hateful comments I have received as a result of starting this blog are few and far in between, and those I do receive only add fuel to my fire and desire to continue doing what I love to do and that is to write about the issues, and give my opinion on them. 

Thanks to all of you who have helped in making this blog a success.  Here’s to another year of passionate discussions about the issues … I’m sure there will be many :)

Monday Update: Wow – Captain Ed’s 2 year blogiversary is on the same day as mine.  Here’s to many more, Ed!

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