Four . . .

 . . .years ago about this time I made the first post on this blog: First Post (how original is that?)

Since then I've made 7688 more posts, had 2,631,254 and counting page views from people and robots (I wish I could discriminate against robots, but I can't), and had 1022 more or less non-spam comments. I'm currently averaging somewhere near 1800 hits daily.

There have been a few changes in our lives. We retired, and Skye, the dog featured in the first post, and many others, died of old age. We have not yet found a suitable replacement.

I thank my readers, regular and irregular, as well as Georgia, and the rest of my family for support. I also thank the circle of other bloggers who occasionally link (and vice versa), my brother is real life Ted at A Man, a Dog and a Gun, William Teach at Pirate's Cove. Doug at The Daley Gator, GOODSTUFF of GOODSTUFF's Cyberworld, John Cox at Proof Positive, Samuel Gonzalez at The Last Tradition, and most of all, Wombat-socho at the Other McCain, whose Rule 5 and FMJRA posts are a significant fraction of my weekly hits.

Not that this blog makes any money. The little I've made off the Amazon widgets on the right side bar have been more than offset by image hosting costs. But that was never exactly the point. The point was to contribute to the conversation, the alternative media that bypasses the ignorant and biased media. And to have some fun. In that vein, I also thank the politicians for their endless dishonesty, the media for their endless sycophancy, scientists for their endless hubris, and all the regular folk for their, well, everything, all of which together have provided me plenty of material.