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Tuesday Thirteen-ish (4 years, still no plan)
Today is the 4-year anniversary of my blog. In that time, I've written 1,691 entries (1.16 per day, I'm told), which have received 6,308 comments. At the rate I'm going, I'm probably two months away from half-a-million hits. I would love to use today's entry as a sort of retrospective, a "best of" collection of entries, but that seems like a lot of work to figure out. I mean, I'm the creative energy of the blog, not the editor. Clearly, I can't be expected to proofread entries on a daily basis, much less do the sort of grunt work needed to select some arbitrary number of old entries to direct your attention toward.
Still, I guess I can make some effort in that direction. As with so many things, this project can proceed more smoothly if I just limit my scope. On the assumption that the first year of its existence is the time that current readers are least likely to be familiar with, I offer you one entry from each month of my blog's first year. It was interesting for me to look back over that first year. Particularly in the first few months, most entries were whimsical, just going for a laugh or perhaps a chuckle. Gradually, more serious entries appeared. It was also a bit sad to see that so many of my regular readers, commentors, and fellow bloggers from that first year have disappeared in one way or another. Reflecting on blog entries then and now, I think I've improved as a writer since then and I've also found more of a consistent "voice" for blogging.
Oh, and don't expect thirteen of anything later this week. I've got twelve months and more than than thirteen total blog entries referenced below, so I figure that averages out to Thirteen. On Tuesday instead of Thursday.
May 2004: The first entry seems like as good a place as any to start, though I actually rather liked this entry from later in the month, about how bad my apartment smelled. The first entry also occasioned some excellent advice about blogging, which I have mostly ignored for the past four years: "You might want to think about either never saying, well, anything interesting, or not using your last name. You can always do google-spoofing things like spelling it $herck or something. To sum up: truly eponymous blogging should only be attempted by the truly unemployed."
June 2004: "Travels With Old People in Search of America" Essentially, it's a diatribe against older motorists.
July 2004: An entry comparing sports and religion. My early blog entries tend to be pretty whimsical, all in all. This one still has some of that humor, but there's also something of a serious point buried in there.
August 2004: Speaking of more serious entries, I rather like this one about communities in a pre-modern world vs. our modern world, and the effect of each on our sense of our selves.
September 2004: My first month of blogging every day. None of the entries really grabbed me though, but I'll point you to this one about Ohio. I'm sure you can hardly wait after that ringing endorsement.
October 2004: October saw a spike in political blogging (go figure). I guess the entry for this month has to be my creative response to a right-wing justification for the war.
November 2004: Avoiding the post-election ennui, we've got an entry about my mom trying to make me pray over a meal, from late in the month.
December 2004: It's about time I referenced an entry about teaching, given how I make my living.
January 2005: The story of my first Sherck ancestor coming to America. Not only was it a good story, but it drew out great stories from lots of other folks, which just might be the best sign of a successful blog entry.
February 2005: I liked a lot of these. There's my entry considering Walmart, or the one looking at our character and the people around us, or this one about Bush and drug use. Hmmm, I just can't decide which one to share with you all....
March 2005: From my trip to Italy that year, here's an entry more or less on the Cappuccin Crypt.
April 2005: This was apparently the religion month, because I had an entry on the history of my move from belief to unbelief and another on Pascal's wager and what religion costs.