{"id":159,"date":"2008-09-23T05:00:24","date_gmt":"2008-09-23T09:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onceuponageek.com\/?p=159"},"modified":"2011-11-14T01:44:55","modified_gmt":"2011-11-14T05:44:55","slug":"happy-birthday-to-me-happy-birthday-to-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/onceuponageek.com\/wordpress\/2008\/09\/23\/happy-birthday-to-me-happy-birthday-to-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy Birthday to Me! Happy Birthday to Me!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"OnceHappy Birthday to me!\u00a0 Happy Birthday to me!\u00a0 Happy Birthday dear Irredeemable Shag… Happy Birthday to me!<\/p>\n

In truth, this particular blog entry was written on Sunday because today I’m out of town for work.\u00a0 It’s one of those grueling trips where you start working before dawn (like 6:00am) and finish working after sunset (like 8:00pm).\u00a0 I’ll be on my feet pretty much the whole week and doing lots of physical labor.\u00a0 Yuck.\u00a0 The worst part is that I won’t be with my family for my birthday.\u00a0 Thankfully, we celebrated over the weekend with lots of family fun.<\/p>\n

Since today is my birthday, I figure its okay to do whatever I want.\u00a0 Well… it’s my blog, so I guess I can do whatever I want here any day.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Regardless… Over at SpeedForce.org<\/a>, Kelson did a cool administrative update on the progress of his blog.\u00a0 I thought I would steal his idea and do the same here.<\/p>\n

By the way, if you have a blog you really should be using Google Analytics<\/a>.\u00a0 It’s an application that helps you understand not only how many people visit your site, but also how they interact with it.\u00a0 It’s free and easy to use.\u00a0 All you need is a Google Account.<\/p>\n

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ONCE UPON A GEEK status update
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Once Upon a Geek went live to the public on Monday, March 31, 2008.\u00a0 174 days, 144 posts, and 365 comments later, it’s still going strong.\u00a0 Early on I realized there were very few readers over the weekend, so I decided to just focus on posting on the weekdays.\u00a0 Hence the description that it’s a “weekdaily” blog.\u00a0 Also, that gives me two days “off” each week so I can recharge my geek batteries.<\/p>\n

Honestly, I’m surprised that I have managed to keep up the blog this long.\u00a0 When I started, it was really an experiment to try and understand what blogging was all about.\u00a0 Now I find posting whatever is in my head to be quite rewarding and almost therapeutic.\u00a0 It’s like y’all are my geek shrinks, and I don’t even have to pay you for it.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Here are the most popular ONCE UPON A GEEK posts so far (excluding the main page):<\/p>\n

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  1. Best of DragonCon 2008 Costumes!<\/a> – 5,934 page views<\/li>\n
  2. Motivational Posters<\/a> – 2,576 page views<\/li>\n
  3. Job Description: Married Geek with Children<\/a> – 1,788 page views<\/li>\n
  4. Uncanny X-Men #500 – A Lapsed X-Fan’s Review<\/a> – 1,301 page views<\/li>\n
  5. 1980’s Cartoon Goodness<\/a> – 742 page views<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Once Upon a Geek started with only 14 unique visitors on that first day.\u00a0 In early August I finally started to get some traction.\u00a0 Since then I’ve been hitting over 100 unique visitors each day. There was one day in particular in which I had 3,475 unique visitors in just one day!\u00a0 The vast majority of visitors have found my blog through reddit.com<\/a>, followed by Google searches and StumbleUpon<\/a>.\u00a0 Since I joined, I’ve been lucky enough most of the time to rank within the top ten blogs on Comic Blog Elite<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    This past month has been particularly good with several really well-received posts.\u00a0 Over the last month, on average there have been:<\/p>\n