I’m trying to figure out what’s happening.  When I was on active duty, I used to write columns for the Post newspaper and even in the local town paper.  After I retired, I missed not being published.  So, here I am, a blogger.

If a blogger blogs and nobody reads it, does it make less noise than the unheard tree falling in the forest?  Deep huh?  Well, my webmeister is GoDaddy.Com.  They help me out by keeping statistics on how many hits I am getting (and even which articles are most popular).

I check the stats all the time and about four months ago, they changed their statistical format.  The new system is called “new statistics tool”.  But, they haven’t done away with the old system.  They now call the old system “classic statistics tool”.  Does that sound familiar?  I think that is exactly what Coke did.

The “classic” tool and the “new” tool never jibe.  Their techs have explained to me that “hits” and “views” are different.  OK, I guess it is better to get a view that a hit.  Before writing this, I decided to make it my quest to understand the difference.  Now, I understand more, but I am sorry that I do.  It appears that the “new statistics tool” does not include visits to my site “from web crawling bots.”  I had no idea that web crawling bots were looking at my blog site.  If I write something funny, will a web crawling bot laugh?  For that and other reasons, I am going to be more careful what I write.  I wonder if the web crawling bots are anything like the critters in The Matrix.

As I mentioned, I can keep track of how many hits I get each day and also, what blogs people are reading.  If you Google “green visor,” Ricequips comes up.  And, I have a lot of hits from people trying to find the elusive green visor.  Then, I published a poem about Wayne and Marie Alley.  You may not know who they are, but, I guess there are a lot of people who do.  I get a lot of hits on Wayne and Marie.  I suspect they come from real people.  I don’t think Wayne and Marie know any web crawling bots.

In February, 2008, I wrote a blog entitled “Bomb Threats at Washington Square.”  It’s filed under The Fox.  It tells about a maddening summer back in 1997, when crank bomb threats were called into our building.  We would evacuate for hours, three to four times a week.  I thought it was a cute story, but I’m not fair and impartial (like Fox News).  Well, here it is over a year later and all of a sudden, I’m getting over 50 hits each day.  What’s going on?  Are these people or critters?

I know with the search engines out there, titles are important (that’s why I worked so long and hard to get this one just right).  For example, if I mention in the title, “child seat safety,” there would be a large number of well-meaning consumer groups who would scrutinize every word.  Now, I mentioned “bomb threats.”  Are terrorists interested in that?  I doubt it.  What really scares me is that our Government may be interested in people writing about bomb threats.  That’s all I need.  “No, no, not the water board again!”

I’ll bet the answer is less sinister than I have conjured up.  I mentioned my old boss, Jerry Curry and how, at that time, he was running for President.  Maybe the Curry fans found the blog.  Then, there is also the possibility that I have finally been discovered by someone other that the web crawling bots.

For a limited time, you can still subscribe to Ricequips.com for FREE.  Just what this country needs in this time of economic strife.