Sunday break: a Through the Sandglass Milestone

On November 25, 2008, Through the Sandglass was launched on an unsuspecting world. Last week the blog recorded the 100,000th pageview and this is the 251st post.

Established to follow on from my book and use the material left on the cutting room floor, it has long since taken on a life of its own – the backlog of new topics grows daily and the cutting room floor remains littered; sometimes I even find myself surprised by the variety of stuff that has appeared on this blog. At the outset, I had only a vague (and, I will readily admit, a somewhat sceptical) awareness of the blogosphere as a whole  and certainly no idea of the extent and energy of the geoblogospheric community. I had no idea what to expect and recall fondly the excitement when a couple of people visited the blog, perhaps even leaving a comment. Today, a couple of hundred visitors a day is typical and those visits come from all over the world (upwards of 130 countries so far). I realise that, in the universe of blogging, such statistics are but motes of intergalactic dust, but to me they’re great and really rewarding. I have encountered all kinds of new virtual friends, a community that has provided immense satisfaction and that I would never have got to know without this endeavour.

So, we’ll see what tomorrow brings, but for now my sincere thanks to all who visit, read, and have helped support Through the Sandglass.

Comments

[Jules]

Congratulations and thanks Michael for your outstanding research and essays. Glad you entered the world of the blogospheres to share your passion and un-ending curiosity about the geological sciences and its myriad branches and convergences.

I am reading The Planet In A Pebble by Jan Zalasiewicz who is lecturer at the University of Leicester and formerly with the British Geological Survey. He explains how the workings and history of the universe can be found in what some would consider a mundane object.
He quotes William Blake about seeing the world in a grain of sand and that he was out by an order of a magnitude or so because he was not aware of the intriguing submicroscopic world that is available to us now through the very sophisticated technology.

Best wishes

Jules

[suvrat]

as always I am enjoying your writing.. congratulations.. :)

[Malcolm]

The amount of page views as represented by grains of sand might be able to fill your shoes, depending on coarse, medium, fine...^_^

[Blaize]

Since reading Cordelia Dean's Against the Tide, as well as Gary Griggs' articles in my local paper, my interest in the littoral zone and, thus, sand, has been firmly established. In Santa Cruz County, California, where I live, the sand hills ecology is so compelling(http://www.santacruzsandhills.com/), with its odd botanical collection--including Ponderosa pines, which should not grow at such a low elevation or in such a wet place. My friend from the Netherlands speaks lyrically of the Veluwe. All of these interests led me to your blog, and I have enjoyed it immensely. Thank you for writing, and congratulations.