A second anniversary

This blog began on December 8, 2010. A year ago, I posted a brief comment about the first year’s results, which included an astonishing (to me) 51,000 page views—exclusive of my own—in that year. If you’re interested, those comments can be seen at: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/12/one-year-and-counting.html .
     Well, it’s now another year later, and I find I’m continuing to enjoy writing these posts, and selecting graphics and other elements to enhance them. And the numbers continue to pile up. In the first year, I found that I had posted 126 times in that span of time, also a number that surprised me. But at this point, two years out, the numbers really are even more amazing to me. The total number of posts has now reached 250, just about exactly double the number after one year, so I guess I have a pretty consistent rate of having ideas to write about.
     For me, the number of page views is even more surprising, since they now total about 150,000. That means that there have been about 100,000 page views in the last year, so that the rate of viewing in this second year has been almost exactly double that of the first year. I note in the sources of the page views that many viewers come from search engines, so the entirety of the blog, old and new, is serving as a resource. I certainly appreciate the interest, and am pleased that there are so many viewers and searchers for information out there who are finding the blog.
     There do not seem to have been as many comments on posts in this second year, compared to the first year, but many more private e-mails from readers, often with relevant and specific questions arising from a particular post. In some ways, this means a deeper kind of interest, and I welcome that as an indication that readers find the information useful and in some sense stimulating.
     One of my goals in this blog was and is to show ways of approaching problems and projects, not because I have any wonderful secrets, but just to indicate a variety of possible sources of information and stimulation, and different routes to completing projects. Possibly the way I attack a challenge is different from your way, not necessarily better but simply different. I am as guilty as anyone of not realizing that I am in a rut about a particular problem, so I think it’s useful to present pathways which might not be your natural route, but could be helpful in stimulating a fresh look at modeling challenges you may face.
Tony Thompson