My sister-in-law, Deb, is to blame. She taught me how to put a site meter on the blog. It's a hoot. It shows where folks come from (often) and what they look at while they're visiting the blog. It also tracks their numbers. Since I installed it last August, 100,000 visitors have dropped by ye olde blog. Thanks to everyone who visits, and to those who share their thoughts and insights. It's been a blessing and I hope it will continue to be. Visitor number 100,000 was from Milwaukee, the rival beer brewer to St. Louis!
I'll see your 100,000 and raise you 90,000 more.
ReplyDeleteIn one respect I love my site meter. It is really cool to see how people are linked to my blog, where in the world they come from, how frequently they visit. Some are like old friends and I don't even know who they are...who is that person from St. Louis that visits daily or where did the person from Romania go, who visited several times a day for a few months and used all the links, why haven't they visited in the last couple of months. And why didn't the person from Derby, Kansas leave a comment...I would love to talk with them since I went to high school there...and so on.
ReplyDeleteBut...I also struggle with one particular sin of pride associated with the site meter. How many people visited today? What did they like? What didn't they like? How could I get more visitors, etc.
It's a blessing and a curse....
Yup - both blessing and curse. But the best cure for pride, in my opinion, is a good laugh at yourself. That's what I try to do whenever I get a swollen head.
ReplyDeleteWhat I do like about the meter is just seeing where folks come from who visit - it amazes me. Obviously some are random hits and leave as soon as they arrive, but I've come to find some folks I consider friends through the venture. I think of you, Dixie, and of Mimi, of Dave in Australia, of Terry in Omaha, and Christine (I'm not sure where she is!). It's been fun to "meet" folks that way - to meet members of God's family that I may never get the privilege of meeting here in our days of pilgrimage, but whom I hope to meet in the joys of the life that never ends.
Oh yes, I completely agree about meeting the people, too. Truth be told, God willing, I don't plan on waiting until the next life to meet everyone. In fact, I did meet someone recently over the telephone and they were completely shocked with my voice. Let it be revealed here first. Dixie has no Southern accent! It's a flat as the Kansas plains.
ReplyDeleteRose,
ReplyDeleteLOL!!! It reminds me of the time I met in the flesh a couple folks that I'd been talking to over the net for a few years. I will never forget the shock on their face: "You can't be Weedon. You're too.. you're too...short."
HELLO??? I cracked up. I should have retorted: Who did you think you were talking to? My son?
(He's at least well over 6'!)
But it is so weird how we do get ideas about folks from the net. I didn't expect a Dixie accent from a woman who went to school in St. Louis, but I'd be curious if you've lost the addictive and totally weird "o" from St. Louis? You know, like calling the thing you eat with a "fark!"
Oh my goodness, the St. Louis accent. I call it a Chicago accent gone bad! In the summer in St. Louis you wear "sharts". And on Sunday you pray to the "Lard". Oh...it stings my ears! I actually had a St. Louis accent thick as mud once but worked on losing it. They tell me I was successful. I am trying to pick up a bit of a Southern accent but it ain't stickin'...
ReplyDeleteChristine (I'm not sure where she is!).
ReplyDeleteHeh, Pastor, my husband often makes the same remark when I'm trying to explain something to him !!
I am resident in the Northeast Ohio area. This blog is truly catholic in its geographical makeup !
to meet members of God's family that I may never get the privilege of meeting here in our days of pilgrimage, but whom I hope to meet in the joys of the life that never ends
Amen to that !!
Dear Pr. Weedon -
ReplyDeleteAhem - I think about 1,000 of those visitors were me!
-C
Dear C -
ReplyDeleteYes, indeed. That number is not unique visitors, just visitors. So it includes any and all repeat visits.
Pax!
I'm not sure whether we will ever meet in this life, but I'll say this as an advance notice if ever we do.
ReplyDeleteI was born in Chicago and we moved away when I was three. I'm not sure what the books now say is the age of language, but absolutely no-one has ever said You're from Chicago, aren't you. We went to Minnesota where I remained until age 22, and while that may have contributed an Americanised Bavarian German that my first Lutheran pastor joked was God getting me ready to be Lutheran so I could lapse into it when going ballistic, in English absolutely no-one has ever said You're from Minnesota, aren't you! I appear to have come away from all that with a clearly Midwestern accent but no further defined than that.
When I was a kid, the deal then was to take French. My French came from a Russian lady who as a young woman lived a genteel life in Czarist Russia, where French was the court language, so I speak rotten French with a Russian accent. Later I was culturally adopted by the Puerto Rican contingent at university, and speak Spanish with a distinct Puerto Rican accent which our Mexican bilingual reps love to tease me about. In Latin, having been a preconciliar RC kid, I learned solid church Latin and will not have an accent when I get to heaven, as I used to tease my colleagues in grad school, as opposed to their "Ciceronian" accent --keekero rather than chichero.
As to the rest, I am 6', 57 years old, short beard (God really had a point about not shaving off part of your anatomy every morning like some priest of Baal!) and all hair pretty much grey.
Oh yeah, the English syntax -- blame my Irish (!) English teacher in Minnesota. Only in America!