Six Down

Six years ago today, on a Friday the 21st March, the Chilean architect and painter Guillermo Jullian de la Fuente died, but the day is now remembered and celebrated as that when a young Cassini revealed himself to the world.

Or to put it another way, the Green All Over blog was launched.

1,746 posts later, and the darn thing is still going strong with 639,000 hits per my counter, and according to Blogger, some 807,000 hits. Will we hit a million by this time next year? Will the blog still be active this time next year?

The first two comments were from Graeme Dand (before he turned into TFA) and Mark Iverson, both still in short trousers at that time, and both still very much alive and well in the betting / trading world.

I have a standing joke that I trot out every anniversary, which might not be side-splittingly hilarious, but I like my traditions, so here we go.

Not all the 1,746 posts have been hugely interesting admittedly, but the other 1,745 have been...

Certainly not many betting related blogs have been around for so long, and I probably wouldn't have expected to still be here six years on back in 2008. There are a few reasons why I'm still here. One is that I am still profitable - as any blogger will tell you, it's easy to blog when things are going well, not so easy when they are not. The golden days have gone with the Super Premium Charge, but it was always just a part-time hobby, and in many ways the money was secondary to the intellectual challenge of trying to find edges and competing with others.

It helps that I am multi-dimensional so far as my interests in sports are concerned too. If your focus is on one sport, it's not so easy to find new angles to discuss.

The blog has evolved too, as have my Elo based ratings. Looking back, some of my ideas were rather basic, (OK, embarrassing), but there is no shame in that so long as you learn from your mistakes and improve.

The FTL gives me regular content too, at least during the football season, as do the comments and mentions I find of the blog around the blogosphere. And then there are my 'campaigns' to call out nonsense, unfairness or wrong doings where I see it, and in betting, there is a lot of that.

And this year of course, there was one individual's attempts to silence me with his ludicrous claim to have reported me to the police - my 'crime'? Linking to another blog post. That was an interesting saga which generated a lot of additional hits.

Oh yes, and a thick skin helps too. I'll be out celebrating for a couple of days, but I will be back for a seventh year of stimulating content. Happy Spring.