The Terrible Catsafterme

I don’t usually like to write about the website on the website, but no real in-depth glance of my life would be complete without mentioning the time spent on putting this together – especially considering I would like to be able to look back on the website to capture the flavor of any given era. Whereas when I reflect on events or time periods of the past and I can usually summarize a broad overview of not only what was going on eventwise, but what was going on in my head, when I write about current events, I miss the brushstroke that paints the atmosphere of this time period. And certainly a key element to the year 2007 would be the work I have done on this site.

Today it celebrates its one year anniversary. It is a birthdate shared with someone much more important, my nephew Adam. (I will be attending his one-year birthday party this weekend, so he will get ample coverage). In the site’s one year, it has grown to something beyond what I would have ever imagined. My intention was that it would make a good place to jot down random thoughts and memories. And it has been. But it has become more. I consider it to now be the ultimate chronicle of my life…and something I firmly feel that everyone needs and should have for themselves.

Not only that, but it has also become a key driver in my life. Forget the nearly one-hour-per-day I spend working on it, and let’s just focus on the how it has impacted what I choose to do with my life. I am convinced that if it were not for the website and the sheer joy I get from chronicling trips and events, I would not have planned six different vacations this year. Nor would I have made the effort to attend so many events. Nor would I have snapped literally thousands of photos with a digital camera I bought exclusively with this website in mind. Nor would I have ever thought to make a resolution to contact a dozen old friends during the year, resulting in the current dating of an old high school sweetheart.

Yes, there have been costs that came with it too. The time I take working on the site has limited the number of hours I can spend in front of the TV. Okay that’s not so bad. But it also has limited the time I can put toward the infinitely more popular Wax Apple website. Or the time to keep up and maintain my house and organize the two ‘junk rooms’ – one of which is currently filled to the brim with photos for the website from…well everywhere.

The current state of the photo room. The round area in the center is where I sit while searching for photos.

But in some way, I can honestly say that it has helped me put my life into an unprecedented perspective. There is a line from the movie Hitch (and I truly wish it had not come from such a mainstream and surface movie) that says something to this effect: “Life is not about how many breaths you take. It’s about the moments that take your breath away.” I have never before felt such a sense that the history of my life is still being written. Complacency has simply not been an option.

Before I get too corny on you with these pensive reflections, I wanted to share a few stats about this site:

**To date it has had more than 7000 unique visits and 30,000 page views. Supposedly, this count has already eliminated the number of bots that periodically scan the articles for the purposes of search engines or for laying spam eggs.

**During the course of any given 24-hour period, the site generally gets between 50 and 60 unique visits, with about 100 pages being hit.

**This is the 373rd posting. The reason there are more than 365 for the one-year anniversary is because there were some days during the first couple months with more than one posting per day. To date, there have been 275 comments left.

**The most frequently visited postings are The Strange Tale of Harry Spear – which has a direct link from both Wikipedia and Snopes – and Enchanted Memories – which has been linked to several theme-park-related blogs. The most commonly visited image appears to be the Cheap Trick logo from The Big Seven. Don’t ask me why. (Although the prom pictures of Christi and me from 1990 run a close second!)

**I can see the number of hits each hour that this site gets, and the busiest time for visitation appears to be between 8am-9am, indicating that there are a group of people who enjoy a little Catsafterme with their morning coffee. The early evening is also a time of heavy traffic, for those that like to visit after they get off work.

It all seems slightly surreal to me. Most often I just try and write things for myself – the type of things that I would be interested in reading – seldom thinking about the fact that others will be reading this. In fact, I’ve probably said things that I shouldn’t have, forgetting that this is out there waiting for world consumption. But I can live with that. And I truly get the fact that I can’t always please everyone. Some like the family ruminations; some like the autographs. And I can live with that too. It’s the blend of both chocolate and peanut butter that gives the Catsafterme the flavor that I most enjoy.  

And finally, if I still have your attention, I wanted to take this opportunity to draw your attention to the INTRODUCTION page one more time. At the bottom of the page is a feature I have added that will guide you to not only the five most recent comments, but any major additions to already-existing postings. This gives me the opportunity to add things into my virtual scrapbook in order to be more complete and accurate.

Many thanks to those who read this site regularly and leave comments. I won’t go so far as to say that I couldn’t or wouldn’t do it without you – because I’d probably be doing it anyway – but I do greatly appreciate the feedback and support.

Here’s to another year of keeping my ass way too busy…

Continue with 2007…

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 13th, 2007 at 6:08 am and is filed under 2000's - Late, Me Myself and I. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.