2,500 and change

I wanted to mark my 2,500th Times Union blog post with some sort of commemorative notice.  Some sort of, “Hey, I’ve reached 2,500 unique Times Union blog posts, and here’s how many of them were K-Chuck Radios, and how many of them were Collarworld chapters, and how many of them were old Elbo Room trivia tournament results…”

Which would have been fine and dandy…

If I hadn’t noticed that I reached 2,500 blog posts two weeks ago.

Whoopsies.

So, for accuracy purposes, my 2,500th blog post was this one, talking about the upcoming musical comedy TV series Galavant.  This blog post?  Number 2,513.  I’ve got to pay attention to what’s going on in the world, I guess.

So what does 2,500 blog posts mean?

Essentially this means that I currently hold a few records here at the TU blog farm.  I now hold the record for the most blog posts by a single community blogger (Bill Dowd’s Dowd on Drinks blog has over 3,000 posts, but Dowd was a staff blogger during part of that time, although he is a community blogger now).  And among all TU bloggers – staff and community – I hold the record for the most consecutive days with at least one fresh blog post on the screen.  Not a single day taken off since August 25, 2009.

Not bad for more than five years of blogging.

I looked through the categories that made up this blog.  Nearly one-fifth of the blog posts were categorized as “photography,” with a few dozen more specifically categorized as “experimental photography” or “Nikon” or “Kodachrome.”  That was the largest grouping of themed posts.

Nearly 300 blog posts were listed as “General,” only meaning that I either didn’t know about the category system when the blogs were initially written, or I simply didn’t bother giving the blog a specific category.  At some point in time, though, I will go through those 300 blog posts and redesignate them.

Nearly 150 blog posts were listed as “Reflection,” in which I talk about things that are on my mind – whether it’s those who have hurt me in the past, or feelings I have that I need to somehow express.  This is what weblogs do – they allow you to convey your world in a way that others might possibly experience or understand or consider or contemplate.

I don’t know why I bothered with a “Home Repairs” category, there’s only one blog post for that title.  Maybe at one point in time I thought I could be a poor man’s Bob Vila… probably best that I didn’t go down that route.

Over 125 of these blog posts were designated as “K-Chuck Radio.”  Funny thing – when I had my old blogspot.com blog portal, there were times when I would simply post one YouTube clip about a song that I liked at that moment in time.  And eventually that evolved into posting TEN YouTube clips around a musical theme.

I have six blog posts dedicated to the web series “Bottle Service.”  Back in 2011, I was in the cast of this web series for a few episodes.  I chronicled my experience with the show.  This was back in 2011.  It’s now 2014.   There’s no sign of the show anywhere online, except for maybe a couple of sizzle trailers.  Guess it’ll be a race between that and Rocky Mountain Film Lab to see which one completes their tasks first.

There are 24 “Albums I Want To Be Buried With,” and if this is the case, I may need a larger casket.

There’s three categories involving my cars – and right now, the old 2005 Saturn Ion “Cardachrome” holds a slight lead (26 posts) over my current car, the 2006 Chevrolet Cobalt SS “The Blackbird” (24 posts), leaving the 1991 Pontiac 6000 (14 posts) in the dust.

There’s really seven different posts in the category of TRON?  Yeah, and as soon as the next TRON movie comes out, there will be most blog posts.

I won’t lie – sometimes I have to update vintage blog posts.  Corrections when something is inaccurate.  Or additions when more information is needed.  And on occasion, I’ve redacted some things that were previously written – for example, if someone whom I thought was my friend essentially stabbed me in the back, well then guess what, your name doesn’t need to appear in my blog.

Wow.  2,513 blog posts.  One could make a sarcastic argument that I was vaccinated with a Victrola needle, that I’ve just been talking my fool head off for five-plus years.  Maybe people read my blog, maybe they don’t.  I’ve made friends with this blog.  I’ve made enemies.

But the most important part of this blog was that it helped me achieve a positive direction in life.  It helped me fix the wrongs in my past.  It helped me deal with powerful, crippling emotions and helped me get away from the pain and the heartache and the anger and the self-loathing.  Not that the pain and the heartache and the anger and the self-loathing doesn’t come back from time to time, but hey we all go through moments like that, and we all find a way to clear through those moments.

Maybe you’ve been on this journey with me from blog post number one.  Or maybe you just recently joined.  You’ve followed enough to know about words like Jumbuck and AGFA-Ansco and Altamont and The Chance and the like.  Maybe you know how to finish phrases in my blog like, “It’s not Monday morning unless I’m dropping something off at ____________,” or “Over the years, I’ve developed a love-hate relationship with _______________.”

You’ve discovered, in all these posts, that I am extremely loyal to those who have treated me fairly and with compassion; and that if you’ve hurt me in any way, if you’ve made me cry to the point where I want to walk fifteen feet past a ten-foot pier, then you are dead to me.  Omertà, they say.

Where will the next 2,500 blog posts lead?  What will I talk about, what will I think about, what will move me to sit in front of my computer and create a blog post that will inspire you to read and to enjoy or to comment upon?

I don’t know.  I don’t know any more than I know what the weather will be like next week.

But I do know this.

I’ll be at the computer tomorrow, writing a new blog post.

What subject will that blog post encompass?

I don’t know.

Yet.