Happy Blogiversary to us. Yes, it's our fourth Blogiversary, meaning Effect Measure has lasted longer than many marriages. Our first post was on November 25, 2004 at our old site over at Blogger. We moved here to Scienceblogs on June 9, 2006. According to Sitemeter, we've had over 1,650,000 unique visits, more than 3,000,000 page views and written over 2800 posts. On our Scienceblogs site alone we've logged almost 25,000 comments (we don't have a count for the Blogger era). There has never been a day without a post on the site, so that makes 1461 straight days of posting here. It makes me tired just to think of it (although a more likely explanation for my sleepiness is that I only slept a couple of hours last night).
Last night I decided I would make dinner. I had recently bought Mrs. R. a new food processor (the old one was really, really old) and electric skillet that had a temperature probe. The instruction books had recipes and I figured it didn't look too hard and with a food processor I didn't need knife skills and the skillet I didn't need to worry about how high to make the flame. I'm telling you about this because it's background to the start of the blog four years ago. When I announced to Mrs. R. my intention to make hash from some potatoes and left over pork from dinner the other night, her only comment was, "Oh, God," accompanied by rolling of the eyes. Very confidence inspiring. As it turned out I did make a hash of things (don't ask), and it would have been worse if Mrs. R. hadn't kept checking on me (at one point she observed me putting the slices of pork into the hollow pusher of the food processor instead of in the feed tube).
So four years ago I offered to help Mrs.R. with Thanksgiving dinner. She kicked me out of the kitchen without hesitating. So there I was wondering what to do until the football game started. This was just after the election of 2004 and like a lot of other people I had spent a month or two obsessively reading and checking political blogs. So I popped over to blogger to see what it was like to blog and there was this button, "Create a Blog." It took 30 seconds. The first week I used a different blog name but switched it to Effect Measure thereafter. It is now the blog that belongs to an undisclosed number of people who all blog under the same name, revere (or Revere), a pseudonym chosen to honor the first citizen member of the newly created Board of Health in the Town of Boston (1799). Each post has only a single author, however.
There are a lot of blogs older than four years, but four years is still a long time in the blogisphere. The reveres have been on the verge of quitting the blog a number of times and one of these days we'll do it for real. Until then, I hope you keep reading. There are more of you than we ever imagined and you live on every continent. It's a small world and getting smaller and we're all in this together.
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4 years is like 35 in blog years.
Congrats and to many more (whether you like it or not, and I knew better than to ask your opinion).
w00t! Happy blogiversary!
Congratulations! It's an amazing achievement.
Thank you, for your time and effort, Revere. Happy Anniversary!
I preen that I have been reading since the beginning. (OK, not that mysterious first week.) EM has been consistently insightful, smart, newsbreaking, appropriately outraged and generous. Thank you many times.
Congratulations and Happy Blogiversary, Revere(s).
Four years is a long haul, but I'm looking forward to another 4 years from you guys.
Many happy returns. And I bet I'll be able to say that this time next year. ;-)
Another reason to give thanks today! What would we do without the Reveres?
Cheers,
Crof
Happy Blogiversary, Revere. Not only an interesting experience for you but for me as well.
Don't stop, in this insane world those who are addicted to your blog need you. Heavy thought? Sorry, it's the truth.
Congrats! After four years, I'm sure there are days when it's hard to come up with new blogging fodder. So, in that spirit, I respectfully offer this, as a possible future topic, perhaps for a Sunday Sermonette, or just because...
Silverton rallies against church's hate message:
http://statesmanjournal.com/article/20081125/NEWS/811250348&referrer=FR…
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/122758712…
I'm so proud...
Tasha: Very nice stories. Makes me feel that things are changing.
And to all who have been so kind in their words and well wishes: many, many thanks. Anonymous blogs don't have any reward except for the kind words and often incisive criticism of readers. Both are appreciated more than you know and almost certainly more than you suspect.
Congratulations. I sure hope you keep on doing the blog because I'm definitely willing to come here every day for the rest of my life. You provide a great service with your blog. And to think that's how it started. Amazing.
just the hint at losing effect measure makes me worry. try and
point us to kindred blogii when you decide to retire, please.
might even be interesting as a current exercise. what are your several must read science/health blogs, besides flu wiki ???
thanks for your efforts and rational approach.
Congratulations and the bests old son....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46bkXgxb66E
Sincere, bests to you and the family for Thanksgiving and the Holidays.
I am impressed you have readers in Antartica! Keep it up.
don't stop. many current and former continue to look to you for guidance. still watching and learning...
Thanks, revere. I almost never comment but nearly always read. Happy Anniversary and Happy Thanksgiving, too!
Dear Mrs R,
Thank you very much for kicking your husband's butt out of the kitchen four years ago. I consider myself very fortunate to be able to turn to him and his coauthors regularly for the best, cutting-edge, and timely discussion of major public health issues of our day.
His writing is top-notch and engaging and I really enjoy when he gets pissed off about things. I strive to one day keep my own blog as consistent and topical as his.
revere has also been very kind to me personally on career development and academic issues; I am fortunate to be the recipient of his wisdom and generosity. However, please do not let him see this lest his head become too large to ever enter the kitchen again.
But then again, maybe you want him to stay in the sitting room.
Happy Thanksgiving,
Abel
Happy Blogoversary (r)Revere(s)!!!
(You know, whenever you are stuck for material, your audience eagerly awaits more stories of the Civil Rights and DFH eras that you think are uninteresting. They are not merely fascinating for the younger set but highly instructive and always relevant for political engagement. just sayin')
Please don't stop. What on earth would we discuss around the water cooler at work if you did??
EM was my first stop when my eyes opened to avian influenza. I gratefully return every day (almost). Thank you for all the work, the insights and your humaneity (is that a word?) You all are wonderful teachers. Stay well.
Congratulations, revere!
Today I celebrated my first Turkey Day with Muslims. My initially very distrustful Paki family down the road asked us to come to Thanksgiving dinner. The women folk having worked for two days (Ms. Ghazni never cooked a turkey) provided us with a large feast and a large selection of traditional Paki food. Man watch out for that damned curry powder stuff.
If you had a cold, you wouldnt after that. Mohammed got a kick watching my eyes water. Ms. Ghazni was a little upset and offended I think right up until the time I took some more. She wanted to know if I was okay afterwards and I then told her it just about knocked me on my tail, but that I felt that it was necessary so that her honor was not impugned. She really liked that...Anyone got a bottle of Tums?
She was very gracious and her mother who goes back to the time of Ghandi and the split up of India/Pakistan was there. She was amazed that we were so at ease with them in the house. Couple of times I had to ask if things were permitted, and we muddled by it. But all in all Randy's exercise routine is going to have to be modified by an immediate weight gain of about a kilo and trips to the gastrointerologist to repair the damage done by the curry powder.
Mohammed has become a very good friend and he wanted to know more about Turkey Day. So I gave a long dissertation as to what happened at Plymouth so long ago, how the Indians saved us. How we screwed them later on. How Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts's got their starts and how religion was the key and major factor in their decisions as to where those people came to be. How Georgia was our Botany Bay. And more so, how we are all Heinz 57's here in the US.
He said that because of religion, Pakistan would likely tear itself apart in the near future. Extremists were raiding into nearby Afghanistan and India and that would soon get a response.
Ms. Ghazni wanted to know about Santa Claus. I told her that I did too. I am still waiting for that Corvette to show up in the driveway...Fall back position is a Lexus. I explained to her how it goes back almost 300 years and how each culture modified him and the idea to their own bent. Japanese at Xmas now get Santa. Great marketing tool. Then she wanted to know about the "Easter Bunny". My wife crowed when she asked that one.
I asked the very elderly Ms. Ghazni about Ghandi. She marched with him, really behind her husband all over India. The salt making she said was a very big deal and how that one single thing ended Brit rule. She met Mountbatten a couple of times with her husband and said he was a fabulous individual who supported Indian rule. She said that she saw the end of empire in his eyes and even as a subject, she felt sad for him. He was very upbeat at the prospects for India afterwards and that India he thought would become the next United States with a diverse population, a tolerant one of religion and its people who practiced. She was a member of the old upper caste system and that she said was an honor that she hated. Very interesting woman. I could see the "thousand yard stare" in her eyes as she thought of the processes of happened in her now 93 year old body. Very nice woman.
So after Turkey (and curry) a lot of laughs, jokes (Mohammed is starting to learn redneck jokes) we parted and invited them for Xmas Dinner. You think Foxworthy is funny on redneck jokes, watch a Pakistani Muslim give it a stab. You will lose it laughing at the attempt.
So ends Turkey Day in 08. God bless the troops and all of you.