100,000!

All righty! My site has received 100,000 hits, not simply page loads (about 200,000) from search engines and whatnot, but actual unique visits by all of you!

I've had the blog since May 2007 (Hey, my blog is 4 years old, too), though I didn't start tracking stats until 2008. That year, I had around 8,000 hits. That number jumped up to 26,000 in 2009, and a whopping 45,000 last year! (Well, it's "whopping" to me.) And I have 21,000 hits so far this year. So I'm on pace to have another 45,000-hit year.

Thank you to all my visitors (all 15,000 of you first-timers), but especially my followers (186 as of this posting) and repeat visitors (5,000 of you). Honestly, this blog was started so that I could simply keep a record of my hobby; having an audience is admittedly a vain bonus.

And what an audience -- You all are visiting from all over kingdom come (and these are recent numbers):
About 30% are from the United States
17% from the U.K.
10% from Spain
6% from Canada
5% each from Germany, Poland and the Netherlands
... and many other countries, all the way down to a visitor each from the Northern Mariana Islands, New Zealand, Finland and Ireland.

The cities I'm getting my most visits from are Peterborough, U.K., followed by Des Moines, Iowa (near my hometown of Ames); Bilbao, Spain; London, U.K.; and Budapest, Hungary. (Granted, these are all recent stats. I also get a LOT of traffic from France ((mostly Paris.))

And my most popular subjects continue to be my Ghostbusters/paranormal investigators (followed by my Bad Bay Hackers, Waiteri Tribe and Steve Barber Samurai.)

Something I especially like about blogging (and our shared hobby) is that it's firmly international. Thousands of us across the world sit at our own little tables tucked away in the deep corners of our homes; artisans and artists meting out bits of creativity on our own terms, yet with the quick click of a button, we can take a quick glance at what someone across the ocean is painting, sculpting or building. 10 years ago, I'd have never imagined someone from Spain, Hungary or New Zealand making comments about my figures. And even 10 years ago, it was still somewhat difficult to find as many blogs, galleries and tutorials as there are on the internet today.

Now to see how long it takes to get to a half million hits....