Det.of Emp.-1K

This marks something of a mile stone for Detritus of Empire.  Post number 1,000.  That seems like a lot but spread out over roughly five and a half years it is a manageable bit of lifting. Three days a week.  A few extra posts for travels or when the mood strikes me.

It is a bit difficult to tell who - or in the case of automated spambots, what - is reading.  The stats generated by the blog creating software claim that roughly 320,000 entities of some sort have opened a page.  

A lot has changed since early 2011.  Blogging has for instance died.  Or so I am told.  It has for certain become passe, almost something to be apologetic about.  The means of communication over the internet have moved on.  Facebook, Twitter, whatever is current today. Until a handier means of "long form" communication turns up I expect I will keep writing although perhaps with some changes along the way.

I have for instance tinkered with font and picture size, recognizing that much of the world has pitched their computers into a landfill and are peering at tiny little phone screens.

It is interesting to track what have been the most popular posts over the years, and to speculate why...

Three Guys Versus the Asian Carp  is number one by a big margin.  It tells the tale of our attempt to stem the tide of invasive fish in the Illinois River.  We did knock their numbers back by a single digit figure.  The mighty Instapundit site picked it up.  Thousands of hits in the course of an hour or two...

History of England Part Seven was part of my first series of posts back in 2011.  I had written a bootleg history of the UK for some travelers of my acquaintance.  This one seems to have attained enduring popularity because it features royal Corgis.

Travels in the Shire another post picked up by "Insty".  I just thought northern England looked like the Shire.  Oh, and there was the thing about Mordor Slugs.

Dressed up Dogs one of the few posts I feel bad about.  Its just some silly dog pictures I found on the internet.  I consider myself more of a "content producer" not just a collector of nonsense.

The Curious Legacy of General Claude Martin this one started with a book I got at a local garage sale.  I read about the remarkable General Martin and had to research more.  This post gets a fair amount of traffic due, I suspect, to alumni from the schools General Martin started in India and France.  Greetings "Old Martinians"!

The Squirrels of Mirkwood I do worry that my increasing interest in squirrels is a sign of impending dotage.  

The Creeping Terror In the summer months I spend an inordinate amount of time explaining to patients that the tick they think maybe crawled across their shirt sleeve is less dangerous to them than the pack of cigs in the pocket of said shirt.  Sigh.

The Grandchildren of the Okies go Home My parody of the classic Woody Guthrie song.  Folks leaving the taxes and regulations of Cal-i-forn-I-A and heading back to the Dust Bowl.  A bit more interest than the usual political posting.  But in general politics are a glut on the internet market.

Forgotten Brewery Caves Alma Wisconsin my most recent Top Ten post, this one is from 2014. I am always careful with the Brewery Cave series to not put temptation to trespass or take risks into the path of the unwise.  In the fashion of recent years this one was picked up via Facebook and made the rounds of local history buffs.

Harvey I have not actually seen a six foot tall talking rabbit.  But I would like to imagine that I would see one if it ever wandered past.

So, what direction for the next thousand posts?

I am surprised to find myself something of an internet authority on a few odd topics such as 19th century brewery caves and tombstones shaped like trees.  I'll probably stumble onto a few more.

I expect to retire the intermittent "Tacitus MD" category shortly.  I have always had to hedge a bit on those stories for privacy reasons anyway.

The student robotics project posts have never been of wide interest.  Too bad, I'm going to keep doing them.  There is a lot of cool stuff ahead in that world.

I hope the "Generations" category continues to expand...

And beyond that we shall just have to see.