Now We Are One: One Year of the Blog

No doubt a lot of people (at least in the US) went to work this morning thinking this day was of note for one of two reasons: 1) President Obama makes his State of the Union address tonight; or 2) Apple is about to announce something that everyone assumes is the Apple Tablet, or iTablet, or iSlate, or something else, though nobody is sure what it does, but it must be important because Steve Jobs invented it. But for me at least, this day has another significance.

Today marks the first anniversary of my first post. We're past the 900-post mark and 1000 is in sight. Thanks to my readers for the links, kind words, and helping spread the word. The good news is, I'm still having fun. A while back Martin Kramer posted a comment warning me about burning out because nobody can be brilliant twice a day.

I'm supposed to be brilliant twice a day? Maybe that's what Professor Kramer does at his blog. I thought I was just posting whatever I felt like: on the bars of Cairo, Arab bagpipes from Morocco to the Gulf, videos of all sorts of stuff, Qadhafi fashion updates, Fun with Google Earth pics of air force bases, Syriac and Armenian Christmas carols, discussions of Arabic transliteration problems, Coptic Christmas tales, and of course some serious policy and current events commentary in among the rest. Where else (other than the blog I got it from) can you hear Cypriot Maronite Arabic?

I intend to keep doing whatever this is I'm doing. Let me know if you figure out what exactly it is; the good news is it seems to be working. Let's see how year two works out. Thanks for reading me.