500

Every few hundred posts, I like to take a few moments and take a look back at what's been happening in this space. And this is post number 500. I decided to skip the update on number 400, so we've got some catching up to do.

Looking back at the last 200 posts (it took just less than a year to write them), I see three distinct spikes in traffic. One came last August when I went to a Radiohead show. Any time you mention Radiohead, the fans come flocking, so that's no surprise.

The second spike came in March, when half of my face seized up, courtesy of Bell's Palsy. I'll write more on the subject later this month, but needless to say, palsy is good for web traffic.

But the biggest driver of traffic to this site came came earlier in the year, when I gave a shout out to Mormon writer and performer Elna Baker. I had herd a piece she did on This American Life, and subsequently learned that she's got a lot of talent. It seems a lot of people were looking for information about Elna Baker, because traffic went through the roof. That little profile on her is by far the most read thing I've ever posted on this blog. Nothing else even comes close. Her book, The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance, will come out next year. It's easily the most searched for term on this site.

And the post actually had real-wold consequences. Some friends in Los Angeles read the post and flew her out to LA for a show. I'm told it went well. I didn't get to go. Oh well.

Shahara Simmons and Patch the Pony are also big drivers of traffic.

As for search terms leading to this site, you'll find the usual suspects: Elna Baker, Shahara Simmons, various spellings of my name. But a new search term star is Thomas Storesund. That's right, my Norwegian buddy Thomas man in demand, if the Internet is to be believed. In the past 11 months, more than 100 people have found their way to this site by searching for the name "Thomas Storesund." Who knew?

Curiously persistent in the search term hierarchy is "My girlfriend is a prostitute." I used the term once when trying to do a white boy translation of a Dr. Dre song. But there are a lot of people searching for information on this topic. So, if your girlfriend is, indeed, prostitute and you've somehow found yourself on this site, please allow me to offer you the following advice: break up. That's just not a healthy situation.

My Faroe Islands project launched some 18 months ago had its greatest success last week with my debuit on Faroese National Radio. Over the last 11 months, several hundred hits from the Faroe Islands have been logged, from at least 200 unique visitors. When you consider there are only 48,000 people that live in the Faroes, that's no small accomplishment. And once again, to my readers on the Faroes, I say, "Hi." I will continue pandering to you for as long as I possibly can.

I end each one of these annual naval gazing sessions the same way, so let's keep the tradition up. This blog started as a writing exercise, then also became a way to keep my parents stocked with baby photos. I don't know who I expected would read this thing, but there is a small band of you out there who don't know me, but read this anyway. I think that's really cool. Thanks for stopping by when you have a chance. I'll keep trying to fill this space with stuff worthy of your attention.