Some thoughts upon 2000 blog posts

My 2000th post went up on this blog on May 20 but there's so much going on, I haven't had time to step back and take stock of the last 3-1/2 years of blogging.

The bi-millenial (is this a word?) post was made from a hotel in Arlington, Virginia while I was at the DOE Geothermal Program Peer Review.

That evening, a handful of us who were at the conference ended up on Roy Mink's boat berthed at the marina on the Potomac around sundown. Roy and his wife lived on boat when he was the director of the DOE geothermal program and they kept it even after they moved back to Idaho.

Lots of stories were shared about geologic exploration exploits around the world. The sun set with the Washington Monument lighting up just over the bow, and Marine 1 helicopter made a number of fast and low trips along the river. It was a fitting way to celebrate even though I didn't realize it at the time.

The blog continues to meet the goals I laid out when I started, the biggest being a way to share news and information about the Arizona geoscience community. One of the surprises is just how much I enjoy doing this. There's also a wonderful satisfaction from the many kind folks who tell me how much they enjoy this blog and follow it regularly. Thanks to everyone who's posted comments, emailed, or spoken to me about the blog.

Now, for those of us who need metrics, I started tracking the analytics in April 2008, about 15 months after the blog started. So, in that period of just over 2 years, there have been 217,327 visits and 320,323 pageviews. The single biggest day was April 5 this year, with over 3,000 pageviews of the Easter Baja (El Mayor-Cucapah) earthquake posts.

The top five posts in terms of visits, are:
1. 6-figure salaries in the oil industry
2. The coming tellurium rush
3. Grand Canyon (Havasu Canyon) flood
4. Abandoned mines in Arizona
5. Time to buy a gold mine in Arizona?

But there's no time to dwell on the past. I have a list of other potential posts calling for attention, at least three recent books that need to be reviewed, and a huge stack of emails full of interesting news.