The TAH 4th Anniversary post

Yup, it was four years ago today that Right Nation banned me on my birthday. I’d been banned at the History Channel forums more than thirty times before I became one of the charter members of Right Nation…and this banning was the only one to piss me off. So I sat down and started this blog. It took me a few days to learn how to drive it, and I got a comment in the first few hours…the blog bug bit me.

Six months later, I was the first blog to post pictures of the Gathering of Eagles 2007 rally at the Vietnam Wall to protect it from the smelly hippies. I got 40,000 hits that weekend, and the bug dug his teeth in further.

A few months before that, I’d found COB6’s email address on a page maintained for our Desert Storm unit and I sent him a message. We hadn’t seen each other since Christmas 1991. He answered me and told me had just launched his own blog. A year later, he joined us here at TAH.

I met TSO at Winter Soldier in Silver Spring (met Army Sergeant and Rurik the same day) and we blogged and laughed over the testimony. Got harassed together by GOE because they saw our “media passes”. A few months later I connived to steal him from The Sniper while we were in West Chester, PA with Skye at another protest.

In some respects, it’s been the toughest job I’ve ever had because I spent more than a year flailing around trying to find my niche in the millions of blogs at that time. I started in Technorati at number 1.2 million, now we’re number 804 (regardless of what Agosto says). That was a steep hill;

Now I just have to sift through the hundreds of tips and news stories to figure out what you want to read about…and what I can say that entertains while informing. Your tips save me a LOT of trouble.

You pay me back with your visits, your tips and your emails to friends about the blog. Good thing because you ain’t paying back with ad clicks;

Yeah, 220 clicks for 250,000 page views since August. (In my best Will Arnett voice) C’mon!

But we’ve been getting around 90,000 visitors a month (despite what Agosto says) and we’re linked on 305,000 blog pages across the internet;

Last year total traffic hit 1 million in October, we’re almost at 1.8 million a year later.

At the Milbloggies Awards, we were behind Blackfive who won in our category…I think that’s incredible. Of course, TSO says it’s because all of those IVAW members (all twenty of them) voted for Blackfive to keep us from winning.

Honestly, I’m just honored that some of you followed me from Right Nation and the rest of you who’ve been with us the last few years. I guess it’s because you’re hoping “Today will be the day that TSO writes a real blog post”. Yeah, me, too.

Now every July 20th I get an email that reads “Today’s my birthday, I’m not blogging. I’m taking the day off”. Let’s see if I get the day off.

Oh, I think BooRadley has been with me the longest. Since I was getting banned from Veterans.com a now-defunct History Channel forum back in early 2000. Good to have you around, Boo. And, a recent member here, 1AirCav69, started there with me, too. Bored yet?

Anyway, thanks for letting us be a part of your daily life. I’ve made more friends than I’ve ever had on and off the internet because of this blog which began as chance to cuss and rant as much as I want. And thanks to those of you who disagree with us all of the time – you keep us honest. So here begins our fifth year.

Category: Pointless blather