Wow, thanks for the comment! When I asked who was reading, I thought I was proposing a rhetorical question. I didn’t really expect anyone to answer, but I’m glad you did! Most of the time I’m just writing for me. Getting a message like this forces me reevaluate who my audience is (in a good way).

Rodanthe and Currituck, how cool! I wouldn’t be surprised if we discovered our families were connected just a few generations back. I don’t know all the details, but both sides of my family are from generally the same area. I spent most of my childhood bouncing between grandparents’ houses in Elizabeth City and Hertford, NC. My mom’s side of the family still has a cottage in Nags Head and we go back east for a visit every chance we get. I don’t know if, as you say, the ocean is in our blood, but I grew up in that Outer Banks surf, and these chilly Alaskan waters have me missing it more often than not.

I wish I had some genealogy notes to compare with you, but although I’m interested in the subject, I’ve never put in the research time. I was lucky enough to be born from a succession of young parents, however, and as a boy, I had the pleasure of knowing six of my eight great-grandparents. I guess I know a few branches back.

The name Matthew Midyett is new to me, and I thank you for the information. I should see what I can coax out of Google about him right now…

When I look over my own contributions to all the JUMP projects we’ve submitted the last few years, I think I’m most proud of the work I put into Pimp My Couch. Doctrine: BoJ, however, comes in a close second. I marvel that Mike and I (with help from our friends, of course) were able to pull all that together in just five days, concept-to-submission. Too bad no one that’s not a regular JUMP attendee has any idea what we’re talking about!

@ Cody:

I hear you on the PHP thing. Note the Top Commentators widget I’m using in the sidebar. See how it isn’t adopting the site style? My CSS/PHP kung fu has only earned me a yellow belt.

About the timeline: I don’t do anything fancy. I have a Photoshop template that is easy to edit. All I have to do is remember to type the notable events into there and then upload a new .gif each time. Somewhat tedious, I suppose, but I’d be surprised if I ever had to do it more than once a month. If you want a head start on your own timeline, feel free to download my templates: horizontal or vertical.

Analytics, eh? Your hosting provider must be supplying you with some sort of web stats. Mine gives me the choice of either a Webalizer or Awstats extract. The image I posted was simply cropped out of the latter.

If you’re left unsatisfied with the options provided to you by your hosting service, Google Analytics is pretty informative and easy to set up with Wordpress. Simply sign up for an account at analytics.google.com and place the javascript code snippet they give you on every page you want tracked. You can either jam that into your header or footer template, or download a plug-in for Wordpress that’ll do it for you (I believe I’m using this.)

One thing I really like about Google Analytics is the “mail me a PDF summary on the 1st of every month” option.

Hmm, I just realized that you may not have been asking about the statistics themselves, but rather how I managed to get so many visitors. Honestly? I think it’s because the search engines index what I write… and I write a LOT. So I may not have that many regular readers (Google tells me that in 2007, 11.83% of visitors to blog.arlomidgett.com were “returning visitors”), but plenty of people are stopping by from time-to-time.

(For fun, I looked back at my Awstats for 2004 – the first complete year of my blog. I had a grand total of 2369 “unique” visitors after the same 12 month span.)

@ Anya

Anya, I didn’t put you at the top of the commentators, that’s all you. I just installed a plug-in that totals up the comments for me.

At any rate, I appreciate all the feedback I get. At times I feel like I’m just sending words out into the abyss; it’s good to know there’s someone reading. (My dashboard tells me I have 159 posts and 203 comments, which isn’t so bad as I’m letting on, I guess.)

Also, I’d consider helping Oksana with her MBA homework, but I’m not sure she’d appreciate it. I know next to nothing about graduate level business…stuff.

@ Pat

Tell me about it. My new Chronology page was just a hair too narrow for the timeline images I made. I have to reduce them down a bit to get them in there.

I usually try to design for an 800×600 screen, but I just don’t know how practical that is anymore. Take a look at what Google Analytics told me about last year: image.

I guess this means my new format will alienate around 6.35% of my visitors. (480×272 came in at .28%; I think that might be an iPhone – which is actually handled, rather well I hear, by the Wordpress Mobile Edition plug-in.) But you know… my main content column, excepting the sidebar of course, still fits within 800px, so they really shouldn’t have to side-scroll. Anyway, if anyone’s been bothered by all this, they’re not letting me know.