Bamboo is a very interesting plant. If you visit any bamboo grove, you will usually find bamboo culms of varying sizes. Regardless of the size, whether it is 1 foot or 60 feet tall, it grew to that size in 90 days or so and will never get any larger. You can put a steel band around a bamboo culm and it will not girdle the culm as it never increases in diameter.
Now to explain why it will not get 60 feet tall next year. The simple answer is leaf and root mass. There is a saying about newly planted bamboo:
The first year it sleeps
The second year it creeps
The third year it leaps.
Bamboo grows more rapidly than any other plant on the planet. It has been clocked surging skyward as fast as 47.6 inches in a 24-hour period. I said all that to get to this (beating around the bush again) blogging and bamboo have a lot in common.
A lot of things we do here at Creative Endeavors and other blogs across the net are reminiscent of bamboo. We plant, we water, and we hone and trim, often to no avail. You will put up a post and it will lie there and just stagnate. You will go through long periods of no hits or a few hits, no comments, and often, for some bloggers, this leads to discouragement.
For lack of a better descriptive I often I refer to this as “withering on the vine.”
So as you can readily see in a lot of ways, we are just like bamboo. Bamboo lies in the ground for a long period of time, and just when you think nothing is going to happen, here it comes!
This week Creative Endeavors has seen an almost phenomenal amount of traffic because of one post. “Baracks House” which is a parody that has been languishing around the site since July of this year. Up until recently the most popular post was a parody of “Sneaking Into America” it had enjoyed that spot all year long. Now since the recent win of Mr. Obama, the Barack thing has just zoomed off the scale.
Traffic on the site hit an all time high today, with over 3,000 visits just since this morning. 3,113 to hear Baracks House and much to my glee, 380 people stopped and hung around to read some of the material. We topped out the day at 3,675 … a personal all time one day high total for this blog. Not too shabby.
Where does all this energy come from, you ask.
Frankly I do not know, and I have no idea as to how long it will sustain these levels. People have discovered Baracks House and I suppose the email and link has been flying all over America, which is good, it entertains, it increases site traffic and some folks stick around and read the material and we get some of that too.
So it is a win/win situation.
Mr. Obama and his supporters are well known for their use of the Internet and this again proves it. Personally I am happy that it is amusing people and they find it so interesting they are telling their friends and stopping by to view the post. I hope that the Obama camp will be able to generate and sustain this type of fervor and interest as we approach the problems of the next few years in this country. Which are many and are formidable.
It is my sincere hope that this popularity, this energy, this administration, is a new catalyst for a rebirth of a mighty nation. Like McDonald’s is so fond of saying … We deserve a break today.
000
A special thanks to Margaret & Helen for the boost, we appreciate it.
