One Hundred Eyes (200, really)

My blog has finally reached 100 page views.  One hundred pairs of eyes (assuming two per customer) have laid, well, eyes on my written words.  When such a milestone, even one as insignificant and laughable as this one, is reached, it makes one wax nostalgic about the history and purpose behind the endeavor.

This blog began in the spring of 2009.  I don't really remember exactly why I started it.  I think it was partly because everyone seemed to have a blog so why shouldn't I have one, too?  I kept a journal as an assignment for an English class way back when I was in college (yes, they had paper back then!) and I had enjoyed putting my thoughts and feelings on paper.  It felt freeing and cathartic to unload my mind.  After college, I stopped writing and, outside of the odd grocery list, haven't put pen to page since.   Did I still have anything worth writing?  Would the words flow like before? Obviously not, considering how rarely I post anything.  Only 20 posts in almost three years.  That's about 1 post every two months.  Gotta be some kind of blogger record.

I have a few other  half-written posts that I am sure I will finish someday.  Now that I have started my chessic adventures, I am writing more frequently.  So, still I persist in keeping this blog whether I post or not and whether anyone reads it or not.  Do I really care if anyone reads my material?  I didn't think I did.  But I do get a certain thrill whenever pageview counter increments.  It's one of the first things I look for when I log in.  In a strange way, it makes me feel good that others have shared my rhetorical emotions.  I guess I am more insecure than I pretend to be.

I also like the fact that people from many parts of the world, not just the United States, have stopped by.  Looking at the statistics, 38 of the 100 have been from other countries.  Nearly half of those are from the republic of Russia.  I wonder if that is due to my involvement with chess?  I have several friends on facebook from Russia through chess groups and such.  I also have had traffic from Germany, Norway, U.K., Netherlands, Malaysia, China, and Brazil.  Apart from the occasional Caribbean cruise or drunken foray to a Mexican beach resort, I don't travel outside the United States.  Nor, do I have "real" friends that live in far-away lands.  So it must have something to do with my online activities.  And chess seems to be the most global and intensive passion I have at the moment.  I am also involved in a forum of one of my other great loves, billiards.  But I haven't been very active in it lately.  As a matter of fact, I don't think I have been on the forum in at least a month or two.  So most likely, chess is driving most of the foreign traffic to my blog.  Who knows where the rest of the traffic comes from.  Clicked on the wrong link or icon, perhaps?  Anyway, it's pleasurable to have reached a milestone with my "little blog that couldn't".  Even if said milestone is completely meaningless.

Despite dingy wax build-up on my nostalgia, I haven't felt the need to go back and read over the early posts in the blog. I don't usually like to do that because it always makes me want to revise and edit them.  Blogger gives me the capability to do that (the fools!!!) and the temptation may just be irresistible.  Sooner or later you have to let your offspring sink or swim on their own.

So raise a glass and toast Nothing 'N' Nobody!  The eyes of the internet are upon me...