Housekeeping: Thanks A (Half) Million

On March 2, 2013, I rebuilt this site as a WordPress blog. For the twelve and a half years prior to that, it had been a plain HTML page with a brief biography and some BMX photos.

In the twenty-three months since then, I've served 500,013 pageviews, with traffic really surging in August of 2014 and continuing to increase afterwards. This time last year, we were at 100k, so obviously the second year of the site was much stronger than the first.

I'm going to use this opportunity to tell you what's going on with me in general, and discuss how I'm going to hand out those prizes I promised to my readers a year ago but have yet to deliver.

So here are the Infrequently, Or Never, Asked Questions:

How am I doing, physically? Okay enough. I gained thirty-five pounds during rehab because I was eating everything that looked like it might assist in the growth of bone and/or cartilage. Five of those I've lost, and over the course of the next year I hope to drop to the point where I can wear my race suit and breathe at the same time. I no longer sleep well, I have some residual pain, and I have a limited number of positions that I can use to lie down or sit, but it could have been much worse and I can still do a 2h30m stint in a race car. There are some other complications, but it's nothing I can't handle.

How is my passenger? She's had significant improvement over the past year, and she's worked very hard for it. A few months ago, I was following her up a long set of stairs and a rather heavy young woman ahead of us made a big deal of moving aside for her, saying, "I've got some physical challenges so I can't move as fast as people without them."

"See," I said afterwards. "You're being able-shamed by fat people now, you've really made the big time." This past month we've been able to get some answers to some medical questions that have been bothering her. I predict big things for her in 2015, and maybe some very positive news by the middle of the year or so.

How's your son? He told his kindergarten teacher he wants to be "a scientist of dinosaurs". At the parent-teacher conference yesterday his teacher brought out a "book" that he had made after requesting twenty pieces of paper and a stapler. The book, as I recall, went something like this. There were illustrations, of course, but this was the text.

There was a bug. He lived in a house even though it was dangerous. But he was not scared. Then he left the house and went outside. He lived in a tree outside. On February 28, he met another bug. They lived in the tree together. Then it was Christmas. The other bug left the bug. And went away. The bug was very sad. But in the end he was ok

"That," I said to the teacher, "reads like a fucking Nicholas Sparks novel." The bugs, I should note, were illustrated with different color markers. I don't know if that was for the sake of clarity or because they're showing the kids Save The Last Dance during afternoon break. My clone is also very interested in playing Minecraft lately and he has made some remarkably complex cities in "Creative Mode". We are 53 pages into the 212-page instruction book for the LEGO Cargo Plane, but he's already figured out how the clutches work to distribute power to different parts of the geartrain.

What are you doing for a living? After a wonderful year of nearly complete and total unemployment, I'm back to working for the man in a cubicle and stuff. I liked being unemployed --- scratch that, I adored it --- but I'm not a trust-fund baby and American Express was threatening to break my legs, so hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work I go. On the positive side, I always have a better view of the auto-journo game when I'm working a day job, because it reminds me what many of my compatriots have forgotten: traveling to five-star hotels to drive new cars for forty-five-minute stints is not "work", no matter how much ennui you've managed to accumulate.

When's your book coming out? Um, this year. I promise. I'm going to ask the first 25 people who commented on my 100k post to be early readers of it and I'll be thanking them in the final version. That's their "prize", you see. I'm sorry, I really wanted to send them each a Lamborghini Huracan, but I've been unemployed (see above).

When's your album, Beautiful Feelings, coming out? After the book. I've already written all the music, but having it performed in a studio by actual musicians takes time and money. I might call it Living The Book Of My Life instead. You never know.

How's your MelodyBurner guitar project doing? It's basically on hold because my builder and partner, Chris, has a waiting list stretching over two years now, and it's all high-profit stuff compared to the Burners. I'm considering taking over the build myself, in the sense that I would subcontract it out to a variety of well-respected folks around Ohio and Michigan. I have a great new source for the very light ash wood that we use for the bodies. With that said, I'm a bit over-extended as it is; most days I am busy from 7am to 1am.

Are you racing this year? Absolutely, and I'll be announcing some of it on TTAC next week.

What's the color of the boathouse at Hereford? How the fuck should I know?

Happy Valentine's Day, everybody. And one last thing: it's trite to say, but if you love someone, tomorrow would be a good day to tell them that.