Welcome!

There's been an uptick in visitors here recently and I'm not quite sure why. My trusty stat counter can tell me cities of origin, but it's not always accurate. It lists the ISP's location, which is not necessarily the user's location. For instance, I show up as being in Atlanta, when of course I'm not. But apparently I've got some new readers from Oregon, Virginia, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Louisiana, and Georgia.


And the strangest thing is I can't tell how they found me. My aforementioned counter service usually identifies where a reader clicked to arrive at my blog. If the person typed in the address directly or navigated via a bookmark, it says "no referring link." Well apparently all these new visitors are typing in my address because they didn't come here from a search engine, and they didn't come here via a link from somebody else's blog or by hitting the "next blog" button. I'm very intrigued. I mean, I often get readers from far-flung locales, but they're just passing through randomly and don't spend much time here. However these new visitors are poking around and reading the archives and stuff. I hope this doesn't freak you out that I know this. Don't let it discourage you from more poking. I'm not snooping, just curious. Nothing would please me more than to get a comment from anyone who enjoys reading my blog. Even if it's anonymous!
Update: Let's add Nevada and California to the list of new visitors. Yay!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In other intriguing news, I got a letter today from Mediaworst, my cable and internet provider, telling me that they've just completed a major upgrade to their infrastructure and will be switching over to this "far superior" system on Wednesday. I have to swap my current modem for a newer one in the apartment complex's leasing office that day, or make an appointment to have a tech come by and do it for me. Assuming this is going to speed up my connection, this is fantastic news! I do bandwidth tests occasionally and this connection is horrifically slow. Right now:


Now if I were paying 20 bucks a month, that would be one thing. But this is nearly 50! But it's my only option because I don't have a land line so DSL is out, and satellite is even more expensive! We'll have to see if the new system really makes a difference.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Tonight I went bowling with a bunch of ladies. One was Laura, who I've known a few months; she organized it. Another was Aneda, who I met about 5 weeks ago through Bunko. The rest I didn't know. I suck at bowling. We played three games and my scores--although progressively better--were abysmal. 69, 75, 91. Granted, I hadn't played in years before tonight, so maybe I should cut myself some slack. But I do not take losing well. And bowling is particularly wincing because after you roll the ball you have to turn around and look at five faces staring back at you. Now, I did get a couple spares and even one strike, but the rest of the time it was just a few pins here and there. But it was a good time overall. Better than sitting home alone I suppose.