The 2000th Post!??!?!

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Photo by Adi Goldstein on Unsplash

It's time for one of those--"hot dang, we hit a milestone, let's celebrate!  We've gone from my first post in March, 2010 (when this blog was called The Hitchhiking Adjunct--thank you very much, Douglas Adams!) to a rebranding into By Any Other Nerd in 2012 since I was not long full-time adjuncting.  That year, I also hit my 100th blog post and it would be only 3 years till I hit my 1001th post.  Three years later, I made it to my 1500th blog post and today, 5 years after that, I'm sharing my 2000th blog post.  Somewhere in between there, I did celebrate my blog being 10 years old as well.  Today--well, it's a teenager--yikes.

The majority of social media projects (blogs, YouTube channels, podcasts, etc) usually don't last more than 6 months (at least, that's one of those things I've read over the years and it feels right based upon my experience).  Somehow, I've managed to keep this blog going.  I've shared some of how I do that (See Part 1 & Part 2 of So You Wanna Blog).  

Ultimately, I've just tried to make it a consistent practice--just like other things that I deem important in my life; as hard as it is, I devote time to it.  That pocket of time can be as little as 20 minutes.  For instance, in the past 6 months, I've found that I inevitably get up at between 4:45am and 5:00am; no matter what.  Many mornings, I come downstairs, feed the cat, and just doing some writing--even if it's just 10-15 minutes, I'll get out a few sentences on what I'm working on and be happy enough with that. 

I also don't try to make the blog bigger than it is. It's a place where I share my thoughts and writing. I know it's mediocre and has a small following--maybe 5,000-10,000 visits a month and many of those are to older posts (particularly the 365 Stories a Year project which seems to be the most popular of all my posts). But I feed it regularly, both original content such as my recent series on my experiences on the Grand Jury as well as things that I'm publishing elsewhere.   

I've also been thinking a lot about a quote (purportedly a Chinese proverb) that keeps circling in my mind around any project I want to start but feel like it is too big (something I hear folks say when they think about blogging or something else and hear that I've been at it for 13 years):  "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now."  I keep thinking about that with my various work--at one point, this was a blog that no one heard of and had a few meandering posts.  Now, it has 2,000 meandering posts but has become a place for me to practice, think, learn, and converse.  

It's also clear that my frequency has fallen off in the last few years, due mainly to dissertating and feeling torn about starting new projects (or not being able to keep them up--such as the 365 Poems project or The Updates).  I hope that by this time next year, I have a blogging project that I can regularly share updates about (maybe get back to the poetry one).  

But in the meantime, I just like to thanks folks for reading this.  I largely write this for me and to help me think and also keep track digitally of my growth and work.  But people do read it and some of y'all comment or email me with your thoughts, responses, or just to say hi.  And that's nice.  I can't say if I would keep at it or not keep at it without those occasional interactions (I truly don't know) but I do know that I smile every time I get on.  I appreciate that in all that there is to read out there on the internet, some folks have decided that my content is worth is.  

So thank you for those who have been around since the beginning and those how have joined along the way.  I still don't have a holistic view of what this blog is--it's very much like me, a mixed bag of different things and thoughts--but I do know that some folks appreciate that.  

Here's to 2,000 more posts--maybe even before 2030?  

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