Thanks to you readers out there in the blogosphere, especially a very loyal core of large-volume readers in certain cities, including some in Europe, which the Feedjit widget never fails to disclose in the right-side column, last month set a new record for eyeballs coming to your humble blog: November 2011 Pageviews: 22,430.
Hallandale Beach Blog also set a new daily record on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, November 22nd, with approximately 2,863 individual pageviews of something on the blog, for whatever rhyme or reason. (More than 119 an hour.)
That's more than one-tenth of the month's total!
Who says that people who work in offices aren't hard at work the week of Thanksgiving?
Uh... the actual evidence.
Doing simple math, that monthly total means that there was a daily average for the 30 days of November of 747.66 pageviews.
Before the end of the year, I'll disclose some of the positive changes that will be coming to the blog in the new year, as well as some of the new tools I'll have that will play an important role in what you can expect to see here.
I'll also probably have some practical suggestions for those of you who have written and asked what sorts of common sense things they should consider or have before starting a blog, since a new year always gives people the chance to do lots of things they've heretofore put off doing, learning or experiencing, including reinventing themselves as bloggers, after putting it off for years, so they can finally share some insight, curiosity and experience they have with the wider world.
That's especially true when they want their newly-christened blog to have at least an occasional oversight element that involves informing the public about local, county or state government chicanery, skullduggery and crony capitalism.
What do you know, Florida is not only the Sunshine State, it's the home of both Old Style and New School govt. chicanery, given the number of Floridians I've heard from who say that when reading the posts here, their favorites are not necessarily the ones about pop culture or sports or the news media -MSM and local- but rather the ones where they can really sense the delicious satisfaction (and occasional glee) I feel in helping to expose elected officials and highly-paid govt. staffers to a degree of scrutiny they hadn't counted on.
Of showing them becoming so blase about riding the gravy train in the Pay-to-Play culture hereabouts, that they forget the public duty they have to those they they are supposed to serve, not become affluent off of.
Of simply taking the time and energy to do some of the investigatory research and field work that the local and state news media should be doing -but isn't- to show the public thru both self-evident photos and hidden records what the genuine reality of their actions, words and policies are.
I can't deny that when you have the goods on one of them, and they can't explain away the facts they find so uncomfortable because you have stolen their crutch or wrath, it's a good feeling.
Given what we already know about the caliber and competency of many elected officials and government employees at the city, county and state level here in Florida -and probably where you live, too- this is a particularly target-rich environment for would-be bloggers who want to hold them accountable thru old-fashioned reason and common sense, regardless of whether you are conservative, liberal or just plain angry at the intersection of political culture of self-enrichment and ego-tripping.
My experience is to let the facts tell the story, along with some informed commentary that you can back up with hard evidence.
There are clearly a lot of people in South Florida who possess the intelligence, common sense and tools to make a positive, tangible difference in their own community, they just need some positive encouragement.
So whether you know someone like this who has talked to you in the past about their desire to start a blog, and you didn't take it upon yourself to encourage them, or you yourself are that would-be blogger who has let things get in the way, DON'T procrastinate this year like last year.
Get organized and get started on giving your community the added oversight and accountability that only serious concerned citizens can give.
I know from personal experience how procrastination is the creative blogger's worst friend
-or even the would-be blogger- since while I was living and working up in Washington, D.C., many of my in-the-know, tech-forward friends on Capitol Hill, in the myriad federal agencies, think tanks and news media, encouraged me to start a blog right at the point in the late 1990's when when blogging was becoming easier to do for non-techs like myself.
A blog that would incorporate many of the interesting and delicious tidbits of information and insight that my friends and I knew first-hand, whether thru discovery or, sometimes, literally, stumbling into it, which we mentioned whenever we got together.
But lacking a blog or website of my own to tell the tale, I shared it with people who already had a news media perch, many whose names you'd recognize, who eventually got the word out, via print or TV.
Me, I always had an excuse not to do it, usually, involving lack of time.
This was back when I was averaging going to about 25 Baltimore Oriole home games a year at Camden Yards, despite living in Arlington County, so I really didn't have a lot of free-time during the baseball season, since I'd usually not get back home from those long American League ballgames until about 1 a.m., and had to leave the house by 7:15 to walk to work via the Ballston Metro station.
Even after returning here to South Florida, it took me a few years to finally bite the bullet.
Every day that I stare at my computer screen now, I think, "If only I had started this
blog earlier!"
When I think about all the crazy, amazing and useful things things you readers would already know by now -but don't!- about many nationally well-known pols, pundits, reporters and Washington-area institutions, to give you a sense of why they are the way they are, both good and bad, but don't because I hesitated, it's frustrating beyond words.
(And perhaps best explains why my posts on Washington tend to be so lengthy?)
In the hands of a serious and dedicated blogger, truth, fairness, context and facts are king.
But they're meaningless if you don't jump at the opportunity that presents itself.
Don't repeat my mistake by procrastinating too long!
Like I have with Twitter, which will change in the new year!
