CMB turns two; thanks for your support!

Yesterday marked the second anniversary of Count Me Blue, and even President Bush acknowledged it. Gee, thanks, Mr. President, but don't you have better things to do than read my blog? I am flattered, though.

As the saying goes, And things were never the same again. I still can't believe it's been two years since I first read my friend Jen's blog, and I thought to myself, "I've got lots of political opinions - why not share them?" Two years of criticizing President Bush and his disastrous policies, reveling in the 2006 election, getting married, my two trips to the '06 Stanley Cup Finals, etc. It's been a long and fun ride, and I appreciate all of your thoughts and feedback, whether they agree with me or not. I really believe that we need more meaningful political discourse in this country, instead of obsessing on the mundane and superficial topics and events that so dominate our politics today. Okay, I'll cop to taking part in a little bit of that myself on the pages of CMB, but I really try to keep that to a minimum. I've tried to tone down the sports references, too; I want to stress that this is a political blog, not a sports one, but when I'm excited or enraged about something that happens on the rink, field or gridiron, I'll share it. (Speaking out of both sides of my mouth - I'm getting pretty excited about my Oilers possibly making the postseason, so that will warrant a separate post in a minute.)

I'm not going to do a recap of year two like last year - time is too precious these days, and I don't have nearly as much time to blog as I would like. I guess teaching five classes in higher education will do that to you.

However, I do want to note that the site logged 8,032 visits last year, which makes me happy and humbled. That number fell short of my stated goal of 10,000, but that's okay - we're movin' in the right direction, since CMB doubled visits from the first year. That said, my goal this year is 15,000 visitors. It's worth noting that whenever I visit the site at home or at work to make sure everything is functioning and loading properly, those visits do not count - I have my counter set up to ignore them.

Anyway, please stay tuned this spring, summer and fall for LOTS of discussion on the issues. This is obviously a pretty big year in our politics, and I plan on being very active in my deeds and words, and I plan on sharing them all with you. In many ways, my involvement in the '04 Kerry campaign led me to blogging as well; I campaigned very, very hard that summer and fall, and obviously the results were a tremendous disappointment. However, that has simply served to motivate me more to try and make a difference.

As the saying goes (I think this is Air America's slogan, actually) - Despair is not an option, so I will keep fighting the good fight and writing the good write.

Thanks again for your opinions, time and visits. Here's to year three being the best year on CMB yet.

Cheers,
PECAD