A doozy of a dozen: monoblogue turns twelve

Well, my friends and readers, it’s that time once again to celebrate the anniversary of my website. Truth be told, there’s not as much to celebrate as this has become a part-time operation at best: over the last year I started in earnest on my second book, stopped on that task to take advantage of a job opportunity I couldn’t pass up (in essence, I spent about five months moonlighting with both a full-time and part-time job), then got back to work on the book. So this website has become more of a secondary or even tertiary outlet for me at times, since I’m often engaging with people on social media.

My general disillusionment with politics has subsided a little bit, but I’m still not really into the whole 2018 election thing yet. Yet the filing deadline isn’t all that far off, and to be realistic those who are campaigning for high-profile seats should already have made their intentions known. To try and start a campaign in January for a June primary against an entrenched incumbent, or as a newcomer, or both, is a nearly impossible task. (So ends the free political advice portion of the blog post.)

I did a quick check of my statistics and it confirmed what I had already figured. My readership was about half of what it was last year, which is probably appropriate because I did half the posts (or probably less.) So I guess I’m down to the diehards now. It’s almost like I’m back to where I was at in the beginning, and that’s sort of fitting as well since I’m working in the same place I was when I started, too. Of course, much has changed in the blogging world since that time. Here’s a good example.

Of late I have been working on my Shorebird of the Week Hall of Fame page for its return next Thursday. As I’m in the midst of adding the Class of 2017 and updating the older profiles, I keep going to my menu of pages to work on the SotWHoF page (it’s a page and not a post) and on that same menu is a link to a private page I’ve kept called the 2009 Guide to the Maryland Blogosphere. It was something I started at the suggestion of a fellow blogger but didn’t keep up, what with all that political and TEA Party jazz going down at the time. (I probably had it public for about a year, since the last edit was in October of 2009.)

Anyway, I scrolled down through the list of over 50 blogs and found out I still link to just two – doesn’t mean some others aren’t active, but I can vouch for about 10 or 15 that I know are deceased. A couple I clicked on to check hadn’t been updated since Obama’s first term, so they’re basically dead, too. (On the other hand, one was just updated Monday so that’s still alive and kicking.)

It takes a lot to keep a website going. There was a period this summer where I had to sweat out fixing the very WordPress program this site runs on because it was failing to do automatic updates and my server provider was upgrading the PHP to a version incompatible with my old WordPress version. So I had to spend an afternoon figuring out how to manually upgrade the site; fortunately (and obviously) I succeeded. But I may have another upcoming headache with photos because Photobucket is phasing out the service level I use and I take up too much space there for the free version. (This is not to mention the years’ worth of photos lost when my old system went away and didn’t repoint – hence the blank spaces on posts from around 2009 to 2012 or so.) And so on and so forth…for some who have jobs, kids, lives – they throw in the towel on this type of outlet.

I will admit that I derive more enjoyment these days from writing my book, but there are times I need a break or I have something off the topic that I need to say – so I go to social media. But that’s not really the best venue for long-form writing like this.

To that end, I think I will stick around for another year. I’m not going to promise anything groundbreaking, new, or exciting will occur here, but you never know when I may get one of those manic periods where I may write more than a couple times a week. 😉