Word Searches and Other Oddities

If you have a small enough blog and a site meter you can find out how people from where get to your site. Links are real common, the Lefty Blogs listing brings people from Blue Oregon, Loaded Orygun's sidebar link brings them, and my comments on other sites bring them. This is all pretty ordinary and straight forward, and a greatly appreciated service. These visitors intend to get here, it's the unintended that get my notice.

I put up some pics of my cowboy action shooting outfit and mentioned the shotgun as showing in word searches from a previous mention, the name in the title is currently driving 4-8 visitors per day. I already knew that, but "fancy words" in a title that finishes "for wishful thinking" is driving several per day. I'm pretty darn sure my article isn't that famous, but I'll be dogged if I can figure what it is they're looking for, as diverse a group as you can imagine, India, Taiwan, China, Harvard, Brooklyn, and more. SAA Colt is popular, but I knew that, but how about "how to butcher a turkey" hitting Geo II's pardon of a turkey or hits from all over the world on an obscure little blog for Litvenenko? I could understand AP, NYT, BBC etc, but "Chuck for..."?

Baker City comes up frequently, I understand that living here, but after all, we're a 10K population in the middle of nowhere. State and Federal agencies show up pretty often as visitors, I kind of assume they're Oregon transplants keeping up as are some of the high power educational institutions that visit, NASA, I admit, throws me.

I do thank the regular visitors, I'm flattered that you find this little endeavor interesting enough to come back. I hope the accidentals got some use out of this, at least more than "what do blue collar workers from Ontario, Canada do for jobs" did.

A Little Blog Vacation

I have some loyal readers that I wouldn't want to disappoint by just disappearing so here's a heads up. The DPO has some important business this weekend and I'm going to be there (Portland) instead of here (Baker City and my computer). So I'm going to give you a little break from me telling you what I think. Hanging with a bunch of politi-junkie Democrats may charge me up good by Sunday.

Go on down a couple articles and tell me why you're a *gasp* liberal if you're bored...

Thanks for coming by

Why Blog? Why Spend This Kind of Time On It?

I've made a change to the header reflecting this post. I've never spent much of my time in the Mainstream, I study things, I analyze them, then I synthesize an understanding and by some quirk, I frequently get things right and I am also usually out of step with a good sized chunk of my fellows. When I say I get things right, I am speaking about being validated after a passage of time, I certainly don't assert that what you read here is going to be right every time, just making sure you have some doubt when you disagree with me.

Blogging started out as an adjunct to an election campaign and a part of that campaign was to give a voice to people who didn't often get one and to do it straight up and straight ahead. No fooling, no side-stepping. I ran a campaign because I was tired of getting kicked around, myself and folks I know and it seemed like it was time to kick back. I don't like getting kicked around, and I'll be darned if I'll just take it. I'll speak up, I'll write a blog, I'll write to the papers, I'll completely lose my mind and run for office and not care if I'm the only one who is paying attention.

I'm not a pundit, I'm not a paid analyst, I make no money from this thing-I beat nails for that, but I get to have my say. If I also give you some amusement or validation or spark a new thought I've really gotten something done, I've gone past my original aim - to not be shut up. If I goad power that has lost its validity, I've really gotten somewhere, if they're really angry they've made me important and you important. And if they don't even know I'm alive, well, I do.

I've been getting some deliberate hits from some rather unusual places, 2 State governments, several state agencies, several impressive colleges, the US House, the Senate Sergeant at Arms, about a dozen different states and several countries, some started out linked from Blue Oregon and Loaded Orygun and have come back on their own. I'm not bragging, my hit count with searches included (accidentals) in a month doesn't equal BO's or LO's dailies. This is small potatoes, but if you're here in this strange place, you've got some strange company.

It's a nice thing that you stopped by to see what I had to say, I'm flattered that some of you come by regularly. If I ticked you off, that's good, you had to think about it to get there, if you liked something or learned something I'm glad to have been useful. Stop by anytime, have a drink of something and if you care to, tell me what you're thinking, then you've had your say.

Now I really suppose I should get back to raising hell.
Thanks