This Thursday will mark my seventh full year of blogging here at Bettnet.com. On July 3, 2001 I redesigned my web site, which had been up for several years before that, to incorporate a blog. Of course, I didn’t even know the word “blog” back then, but that’s what it was. There were no comments for the first year and a quarter and I had to write labriously the HTML code for the first several months.
You can see my first halting entries at the now defunct, but still legible, archive page. To keep things in perspective, I hadn’t yet met Melanie and Isabella was some five years in the future. The sex-abuse scandal hadn’t broken yet and 9/11 was still 2 months in the future. George W. Bush was just seven months into his first term and the big political crisis was embryonic stem cell research.
Since October 26, 2002—the date I began using the then-current iteration of my blogging software—I have written about 9,300 blog entries. In the year and several months before that I wrote at least 700 more. (Some days I was writing 10 entries per day!) So, my estimate is that I’ve written more than 10,000 blog entries in these seven years.
I may not have the oldest Catholic blog around, but it’s older than most. And I hope to have it around for a long time to come.
Photo by S. Sepp via Wikimedia Commons. Used with permission under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license 2.5.
Congratulations on such an acheivement! God bless you for your efforts.
Congrats and I wish for many more years having read your blog for a couple months more than six years.
You might not be one of the first Catholic blogs, but you are pretty close.
Kathy Shaidle started in Jan of 2001, Victor Lams in May 2001, Amy in Sep of 2001, Mark in Apr 2002. So you are probably around #3.
I hit my sixth anniversary of blogging later this month.
Dom,
Praise be to God for your blog. You inject sanity into this otherwise insane world.
God Bless,
Catholic Fan
Congratulations.
I’ve been reading your blog almost as long as you’ve been writing it.
I remember reading about Melanie, and all the wedding plans.
Of course, I looked at all the photos you provided of the wonderful event and shared your joy at the birth of your two beautiful girls.
Gosh – I feel as if I know you all.
I wish you continued good luck. I hope your blog will be here for me to read -and respond to every so often- for many more years to come.
Thanks.
I do miss your commentary on politics, Church issues (i.e. VOTF), etc. but I still enjoy reading.
I first found your blog through Mark Shea (I think he called you a sensible guy). Must’ve been around late 2002/early 2003. That was back when blogrolls were not forty feet long so I could check out most of the blogs on the list.
Your post title led me to believe you might be taking a sabbath rest, so I am glad that’s not the case. Cheers!
Congrats on your 7 years of blogging! May God bless you with many more!
I was all of 11 1/2 when you started your blog.
I think I started reading around when Isabella was born. It’s been a fun couple of years. May there be many more excellent blog posts in the future.
Wow, now I really feel old.
So no sabbatical for the sabbath year?
I thought that’s what this past year has been.
Congrads to you and God Bless you. Love Mum
Your Mom said it best, Dom o’ Mine!
smooches to you…and after Megan’s post, you should feel old!