Blogaversary

Admittedly, we had been quite poor about regularly updating our blog during December. This was due to many factors... the holiday season, semester finals, and lots of recent get-togethers with people.

Our apologies. We will try to do better, especially now that school is out and we are on our winter break.

Fittingly, today marks the 1-year anniversary of the start of this blog! Here are some blog stats that you might find interesting...

• Through 2009, we posted 237 entries. That averages to one entry every 36 hours.
• 28 of those entries have been about food that Bethany is cooking up in the kitchen.
  
• Blog entry that wins for receiving the most comments is Chicken, I Hate Your Guts, with 8 comments.
• Blog reader that wins for posting the most comments is me :) (that's my mom!), with 67 comments throughout the year (and she didn't even start commenting until June!)
• Visitor clicks on the Google AdSense ads (you know, those ads off to the right, and lower down a bit) have earned us a whopping $2.38 through the year. Now that is some web page real estate put to good use. Goodbye, ads.
• Our blog has had 1406 unique visitors. But, if we taken into account that some regular visitors may have used a public computer or a friend's computer to view our blog, and also some folks who accidentally stumbled onto the blog and then left altogether, then I would bring that number down to something like 1000 unique visitors. Oh, and that says nothing about return readership.
  
• Blog visitors have spanned the globe, coming from 19 different countries. Most frequent, of course, are visitors from the United States, followed by Canada as a distant second, and then China as a distant third (eh? accessible?). Interesting to note is that, in fourth place are periodic regular visits from... Belgium. From Brussels, in fact. Who are you, my Belgian friend? Or perhaps, who are you, my American friend who uses a proxy server that routes through Belgium?
• 22% of our visitors use Verizon Internet Services, followed by Comcast users at 10%, then Road Runner at 7.4% and AT&T at 4.45%.
• Some folks clearly are reading our blog while they are at work. To our readers over at CB Richard Ellis and in the Los Angeles Unified School District... don't worry, your secret is safe with us.
• We have received some visits from at least one or two people who work at Starbucks Corporate. Greetings! By the way, I know of a city in China that has a significant expat population and college student population - would be a great market for a new store. Let's talk.
• 59% of our visitors use Firefox, whereas only 26% use IE. Thank you, my readers. I know I had nothing to do with influencing your decision, but nonetheless... I'm proud of you (er, 59% of you.).
• Some of you have found our blog via a search on Google. Yes, if you search with the terms "alvin and bethany" or even just "alvin bethany" - our blog link will show up right at the top.

Thank you for your faithful readership, friends!