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Today is my 4th Blogaversary. 

I launched Cromely's World with this post on 2006-01-23.  That was so long ago, the Seahawks were actual Superbowl contenders, and people expected Vista to be awesome.

At the time, I didn't know how long I would stick with this project, but somehow or other it's become as normal a part of my routine as doing laundry.

My goal has always been to post 5 out of every 7 days, or more.  In the past year, I set an initial goal of limiting myself to that number, and I nearly hit it.  That would be 260 posts.  I did 271.

• Year 1: 347 
• Year 2: 317
• Year 3: 304
• Year 4: 271

Cromely's World has been through a lot of changes.  I switched to a 3 column template. I added Adgitize.  I used CMFAds more aggressively. I expanded my StumbleUpon and Twitter participation. I scaled back my Entrecard participation.

Scaling back Entrecard has meant a big drop from traffic.  I went from 375-450 visitors per day, to 100-150 visitors per day.  I thought giving up the daily dropping rigmarole would give me more down time, but it seems the Wii Fit took up those extra hours.

Lately I've been having trouble starting new posts.  The problem is that I have a number of topics I want to write about, and that I want the post to be good. Many times, though, I don't have the time or the energy I feel are required to do the "good" post so I spend the next half hour trying to come up with something else.  By the time I come up with something else that I may not be as happy with, I could have written the big, preferred post. I need to constantly remind myself not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Here are the ground rules I initially laid out when I started this blog:

So here is the charter for this blog. Keep in mind, that I am likely to discard this as soon as it becomes convenient.

1. Entries will be interesting to at least one person other than my self.
2. If they are not interesting to anyone besides myself, they will simply be bizarre enough to elicit a rounding chorus of “WTF?”
3. This is not a journal or diary of my private thoughts. If I wouldn't converse about the topic with actual people, it doesn't belong here.
4. Everything will be true and accurate (That one might be a tad ridiculous)

I will discuss whatever interests me on a particular day. That's mainly TV, tech stuff, weird stuff, geeky stuff, money stuff, literary stuff, travel stuff, and probably some more TV.

I think I've done a reasonably good job meeting those goals.  The big change this year has been my gardening posts.  Twenty-six posts, or 10% of the total this year were about plants.  I expect that will continue this year.


Regardless of all the topics, posts, books, travel rants and typos, what continues to amaze me are those of you who read my posts regularly.  I am grateful for the time and energy you devote to reading and commenting. I write and post because I have an internal need to write.  I try to write and post well, and be interesting / informative / entertaining because of you.

Here is a list of my earlier Blogaverary posts.

2006-01-23: Cromely's World Launched
2007-01-24: 371 -- First Blogaversary
2008-01-24: 685 -- Second Blogaversary
2009-01-24: 990 -- Third Blogaversary

Have a great day.  And I look forward to doing this again next year.