Temporarily Assigned to Planet Earth

Okay, time to fess up. De-lurk, whatever you want to call it. My webhost provides pages and pages (and pages) of statistics on this website. They cater to business customers, so the site stats are extremely detailed. I rarely pore over all the numbers. I don't know how to interpret most of it, but I do know one thing: I have at least a few hundred readers who visit my blog on a regular basis, by "direct request", meaning you've bookmarked the blog or typed the URL into your browser.

I didn't start this blog with the hope of attracting a large audience; on the contrary, I pay only $25/month for the website and having a large audience would increase the cost. I didn't sign up for syndication, or provide an RSS feed, or any of those things that would draw readers. I figured over time I'd attract a small number of like-minded people and it'd be nice to have a place to post my essays and rants and get just a little feedback. But alas. I seem to have attracted only lurkers.

You've no doubt noticed that I've been posting less and less lately. The lack of feedback is finally making me feel as though I'm standing on a stage in an empty auditorium, talking to myself. When I have something to say now I'm more likely to post it as a comment on someone else's blog, because I know more people will read it there. I've also been hanging out on livejournal lately because I have more interaction going with others over there, despite my having a grand total of four people on my "friends" list.

So, I've actually been thinking about shutting this blog down. I'm not ready to make the decision yet. Having this website gives me a place to put pictures and links so it's useful. And it's cheap. I'd be more likely to continue posting here if some of you would de-lurk. I'm asking all of you who read this entry to leave a comment, even if you're too shy to say anything other than "hi".