Friday, September 12, 2014

Milestone


To say that numbers are not my strength is like saying that Marcel Marceau had difficulty finding the right word.
Motivated as I might be, calculating percentage at a store’s doorbuster sale can often send me in desperation to a gum-chewing sales clerk. I know that many English majors are limping around with this same Achilles' heel, but I still think it’s ironic that word problems were always my greatest nemesis.

          Statistics aren’t bad, as long as someone else does the heavy lifting and I’m on the receiving end of their efforts. Things like the average rainfall in Guatemala, or the chocolate consumption per capita in the United States. As I’ve become more familiar with the workings of baseball, I’ve learned the crucial role statistics can play for both player and viewer. Although I do have to say I’m beginning to think that sometimes the numbers guys in sports are really stretching to come up with new categories:

The number of left-handed knuckleballers to have pitched during a full moon.
Or
How often the ball has bounced fourteen feet from third base since 1932.

          Now that I’m approaching the two-year mark on this blog, I’ve become a bit of a numbers junkie myself. I’m still new enough to this that at least once a day I check my stats, looking to see how many people in the Ukraine are reading me (Really, folks? Things are so dull there that you’re compelled to check in and see how my 17 year old cat is doing?).

          So I’m still enough of a newbie to have been excited this morning when I opened things up to see if there were any comments waiting to be published and I discovered that I have the nice round number of 1,000 comments!
(Okay, fine, I know some of those are my own, but it’s still exciting.) And I know I’ll never hit John Gray’s lofty status.Going Gently All he has to do is slap up a snap of Winnie napping and before seven minutes have ticked by thirty-five people have responded.

Nevertheless, thank you – You know who you are, and I appreciate your stopping by.
          

8 comments:

  1. Aww--we love Satchel and your and your painting husband and retirement and all that stuff.

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  2. That's a pretty distant comparison of stone photo and milestone. I got it when I finished the post. Congrats on 1000 comments. I do look at stats. What good they are I don't know. Writing is the key!

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  3. You are an excellent writer.

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  4. I check my stats now and then. I'm always amazed that my posts get so many page views. Well, not all of them.

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  5. Your writing amazes me! I love reading your blog, Gosh, I learn new words with your every post. You are like a good school teacher. :)

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    1. Thanks, Henny! Visiting you blog is like a walk in the country. Your patch of land looks like paradise.

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  6. Just followed your profile to your blog after seeing your comment. I'll read further tomorrow.
    As to comments on your blog and readers, I'm unsure being a largely-disinterested blog person what the count means, but I was alarmed when I saw the people that had somehow 'joined' mine. My thought was what the hell could they want to read this?? For the first year or so it was only my kids that read the stuff, probably to figure out if I had reached the "dad, there's this nice home near us" stage.
    I've somewhat gotten over that, deciding that it might be the same reason I explore this in the morning out of boredom and retirement...plus winter seems to start in September.
    Anyway, I'll read more tomorrow.

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