6 months and 200,000 hits later...
Just over six months ago I launched this blog, inspired by the now defunct and sorely missed Diplomad- not long after that Smiley joined me in this adventure in blogging. I think if anyone had told us at the time that we would last this long and attract any readers, let alone average about 1,800 hits per day we would have asked them to pass the bottle. We are having a lot of fun doing this, and don't plan to stop anytime soon, so please don't take this as a swan song- just a stroll down memory lane.

Over the last six months we've had some fun with group blog projects- I especially enjoyed the "What if We Had Never Invaded Iraq" scenario and replies. That was the most fun I think I have had with the blog- and that is really saying something. We launched a blog for folks who have no blog of their own (to less than stellar success, but still fun), and hosted some great guest pieces- often inspiring excellent exchanges in the comments sections.

Smiley and I have made some great blogosphere friends along the way, blogs we admire and owe a debt of gratitude too (I hope I didn't miss anyone). In addition we have a great core group of commenters, Tina, Dan M, Peter Rice, USMC_Vet, Toni, LB, Consul-at-Arms, Soldier-Diplomat (and I am sure more whom I have left off this list) that can always be counted on to get the comments going. To balance that we've garnered some less than pleased reactions from readers to a few posts (oddly enough usually by e-mail): while the Manolo post got nothing but good comments a few e-mailers felt it did not belong on this site, and more than a few readers did not like the "Hello, Congress?" post. To them I can only say thanks for taking the time to write in and to read the blog, but sometimes we just want to go off topic and blow off steam.

So where is this linkfest going you might ask? Nowhere, really. I was just perusing the archives and hit meter and got a little verklempt as Linda Richman might say.

Thanks to all who read, comment and e-mail. While Smiley and I would still probably fire these posts off into the ether even if no one was responding, you all make it infinitely more fun. Having said that, anyone have any requests for topics? Sometimes it gets a little hard to find something original to write about within the scope of this blog, and that is when we seem to get into trouble (and produce our own flashback pieces like this)!

Cheers, Dr. D

(End of Post)

4/17/2005 10:40:00 AM posted by Dr. Demarche