Suddenly I have a lot of readers

About a month ago, I installed a stat counter on my blog because I wanted to know if anybody beside my dad, my aunt, and my neighbors read it. I saw that I do have more than three unique readers, and congratulated myself on some small measure of success.

Today I discovered that the stat counter people can generate a map of where my readers live. I do indeed have a reader in Carmichael, California, another reader in The Dalles, Oregon, and a reader or two in Boston. (Thank you Dad, Sis, and Peter.) Surprisingly, however, I have numerous readers scattered throughout Europe and the Middle East. Looking deeper, I found out that a lot of them arrived as a result of Google searches, usually on "Russian padej." Amazingly I come up first on that particular search, and I really hope the article these folks find helps them in some way because the padej is a really murky business with which I am still grappling.

Unfortunately, I know that the article isn't so gripping that they read any more of my stuff. Uniformly, their exit point is the same as their entry point and they don't appear to be staying long.

Nevertheless, I am not entirely anonymous. I am assured of that by the fact that I have just posted my most popular picture ever. It's the picture of me between two women in bathing suits from my last article. Already 52 people have looked at that picture long enough for Picasa to count it as a view, and I didn't even link to it from Facebook. Apparently one route to success includes scantily-clad women.