In 2006, 28 percent of teens ages 12 to 17 and young adults ages 18 to 29 were bloggers, according to survey results released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center. By the fall of 2009, however, these numbers dropped to 14 percent of teens and 15 percent of young adults. During the same period, the percentage of online adults over 30 who are blogging rose from 7 percent in 2006 to 11 percent in 2009.

See? Us old(er) folks are gaining while the younger crowd head elsewhere. According to the article, that “elsewhere” is Facebook and MySpace but they don’t seem to care for Twitter. I have to give them some credit for that anyway.

You see, somewhere back in my distant blogging past I remember a plethora of complaints opinions from the older blogging crowd about the quality of the content written by the (much) younger crowd. Like the entire lack of it. I even remember some wishing they’d just go away.

Of course some of the older crowd has always been wishing they’d just go away since the very first child on this planet hit 13.

Now I’m not saying I was one of those who thought that bloggers who were in their teens and early twenties should just go away. I’m more of an equal blogging opportunity type of guy when it comes to things like that so I really didn’t have a problem with the (much) younger blogging crowd. As long as they stayed on Blogger it was fine with me.

Besides, I figured that if a youngster could manage to setup his/her own DYI WordPress blog then they deserved to be there quality content or no.

There were always exceptions to the rule of course but they were pretty much few and far between.

So there it is folks. The elders, who are often left behind in every other way shape and form these days (and the other days as well), are actually gaining on the younger set in the art of blogging. At this rate I figure we’ll have the house majority by 2012, yes?

It really hit me when I finished renewing this site for the fourth time. Okay, so the archives only go back as far as February of 2006 but that doesn’t count the posts I lost during my transitions between the old Blogger blog and doing-it-myself with a few month stop at Wordpress.com to catch my breath—moving the blog was tough in those days.

Then, four years ago apparently, I ended up here and have been posting ever since. Never did straighten out the links in the sidebar during all that time nor did I weed out the categories as much as I wanted to but the site has worked pretty well nonetheless, more or less.

I wandered into this blunderland of DIY WordPress blogging before there was anything like tags or threaded comments and the like. There were none of the must-have type plugins available back then like XML Sitemaps, Simple Tags, All-In-One-SEO or even Subscribe to Comments. The WordPress theme directory was a whole different site in those days then it disappeared altogether.

It was pretty much a mind boggling, code-your-own type of world that had a habit of scaring the living bejesus out of the beginner (remember the venerable Ultimate Tag Warrior?)

Over the years…

Over the years??!!? Man, now that’s a scary thought.

Over the years I’ve dragged this poor blog of mine through bogs of themes, swamps of plugins and the muck of occasionally plugged up databases. Past God knows how many version updates, database back ups and restorations, complete reinstalls and bouts of complete and utter apathy.

I’ve pushed it in front of me with the joy of finding out what lay around the next corner and dragged it behind me like some boat anchor chained around my neck secured with a padlock I didn’t have a key for.

I’ve swung from not being able to write fast enough to complete lack of interest and back again so many times I’ve lost count.

But I also made some very good friends along the way, most of which are still hanging around despite my lack of content over the past year. Okay, so it was a bugger of a year what with surgery and all that led up to it. And it’s taken a hell of a lot longer to recover from it than I first thought but people lose interest fast in these days of Carnation Instant Facebook and Folgers Freeze Dried Twitter. So I’m very thankful that those who I hold closest still have me plugged into their feed reader of choice.

I’ve been Stumbled a few times, Dugg once or twice and,at one time or another, earned all those badges of merit near the bottom of the sidebar. I even had the pleasure of helping a few folks in their own blogging endeavors while I was at it so all in all it’s been a pretty good run so far.

Looks like it’s too late to stop now what with 5 years waggling it’s ears and staring at me from around the next corner. Now that dealing with the back end of the blog is akin to climbing into my old Jeep Cherokee and going for a drive in the country, I can handle all the mechanics easier than I can write posts most times So it seems the only logical thing to do is continue on continuing on.

Even though I’m a rather illogical person at heart.

So here’s to blogging for fifth year. Hopefully these next twelve months won’t pass me by like the last twelve did. Too much going on and I really hate missing out on things.

So it’s not a great ending but it’s getting late and I need my cup of tea before I hit the sack.

Has everyone said everything there is to say?  Is everyone too wrapped up in trying to stay alive during ‘our current financial blip’?  Or have people just gotten bored with the whole business?

Or maybe all of the above?

Hell, you got me. I do sympathize with him or maybe empathise is a more appropriate word with the possible exception that he’s still writing just about everyday whereas I seem to be sitting here stuck in the proverbial rut. But, then again, I always seem to be stuck in a proverbial rut.

Aside from that I can definitely see where he’s coming from. The world we started blogging in 3 and some odd years ago is not the same world that we’re still stubbornly blogging away in now. Back when we started this adventure in blunderland bloggerland, Facebook was just peeking out of dorm windows and considering the prospects of moving off campus and Twitter was still a twinkle in Odeo’s eyes.

Now it’s all about tweets and twerps and live news feeds and how many times you can change your Facebook avatar in the space of 3 days. Is it just the furtherization (if that’s not a word, it should be) of the “Instant Gratification” mentality that’s over swept the globe like some modern day version of a mental black plague that makes the old fashioned blog too slow to bother with while the authors just wallow around in the muck of has-been-a-lity?

Or are we just burned out?

Could it be that it takes a rare individual to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous online instantaneous sociality while the rest of us get left on the battlefield of yesterday’s comment section? Lost in blogging purgatory, ever staring into the blank field of a “New post” page while the mind reels in the throes of bloggish apathy?

Oh, good grief, did I really that?

Okay, so who knows? Perhaps it’s just the calm before the next blogging storm yet to come. All I know is that it’s late and I haven’t had my cup of tea yet so I’ll see you all tomorrow. That is if I think of anything to say?

According to the archives my first post on my new custom digs here was published on February 2nd, 2006. It wasn’t much actually and was probably one of several that I dragged over from the second incarnation over at WordPress.com but it marks the beginning of my fine adventure in custom WordPress blogging. Hell, that had to have been using WordPress 2.0 since WP 2.1 wasn’t released until January, 2007.

Egad!

To be perfectly honest about it this rather bedraggled, dog eared, inconsistent effort of mine has existed over a very tumultuous time of my life that began with me happily ensconced with my lady in a time worn but comfortable little town in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont and contentedly employed in job that seemed tailor made to fit me and…

…ended with me still happily ensconced with my lady in a time worn but comfortable little town in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, unemployed for over a year due to disabilities and looking forward to surgery and ever changing medications.

To say I’m not quite the same person I was when I first dragged this poor blog kicking and screaming into it’s own custom built log home 3 years ago is most likely an understatement. Oh sure, it’s still me, not much can shake that part loose but the outlook on the future has taken one hell of a slap in the face. I’m still trying to come to terms with that part of it.

I’ll let you know if I manage to make heads or tails of it.

I’ve met some excellent people along the way and made a few fast friends. I’m sure you know who you are. Funny on how my life online has reflected my real life. Met some great people over the years but only a few I could actually call friends. Makes me wonder how many other bloggers have found the same to be true for them as well.

Okay then.

Obviously there’s only one thing to do now…

Alcohol!

No…wait. I can’t do that. My gut would never tolerate it.

*sigh*

Guess I’ll just have to just keep on keepin’ on then. I mean after 3 years of solving problems, changing themes, making phone calls to my host, upgrading WordPress/plugins/themes, one complete reinstall, replying to comments and…

…now what was that other thing?

Oh yeah…

…writing!

I guess it would be foolish to ditch the whole effort now wouldn’t it?

So, damn the page rank and screw Technorati, here’s to another year of doing…uh…well…whatever I’m doing here.

Cheers!