Wow, time flies... Rolling up on 2nd Blogiversary

On September 4th, BAR will be having our 2 year Blogiversary.

I never really knew where I was going to go with this little blog when I started it.  I started off with a mild political rant and then moved on to a couple of funny stories then from there, once Kx sent the famous Borepatch a headsup that I started blogging....  zoom!  My blog started taking off.

My first inquiry about who the heck is reading my blog recieved a comment from The Big Guy and he said, "Reading? We're not just reading, Sugar... Some of us have added you to our blogrolls and RSS readers.  Keep up the good work!"  (I love fact that he called me Sugar  good ole Southern boy that he is...   and meeting him in person was wonderful! I hope he can make DABII)

Soon, I started reading other blogs, mostly Gunnies and it reminded me of how much I enjoyed shooting and so I decided to take it up again.  That's been about a year and a half ago.

Finally, I convinced Kx59 to join me in blogging and thank goodness he did!  He's been great about keeping the blog rolling and because of him, I have gotten more and more in tune with the gun blogging community.

So, how is BAR doing?  For a little blog that I never dreamed anyone would care to read so far our stats look like so:


Total Pageviews as of this morning 52,608
Average hits per day are anywhere from 100-250
We have 1067 (about to be 1068) posts published
There are 36 Followers (thank you so much!!!)
We have hits from EVERY state in the Union, plus Washington DC, Puerto Rico and the USVI
Since this past November alone, we have hits from 79 Countries (Excluding the US) spanning over 6 continents (am missing Antartica).

Top 10 Countries who read BAR Highest to Lowest Hit Count:
United States
Russia
Germany
United Kingdom
Canada
Turkey
Indonesia
The Netherlands
France
Brazil

Our largest referring sites:
Goggle
Gun Blog Blacklist (thanks North!)
Feral Irishman
Borepatch

So I want to just stop and take the opportunity to thank all of you for reading.  Thank you to our readers from all over the world (would love an email from you letting me know who you are and why you like our blog...  I'm way curious over that one)!

I think that the best thing that I have gotten from blogging is the sense of a very good blogging community out there.  Having the opportunity to meet wonderful people such as The Redneck Engineer and Bob S and aforementioned Borepatch and The Big Guy.

It's not just those four, but so many others that we've met Ye Old Furt, Alan and well, they are all listed in the Side Bar.... Having met each of you is an honor and a pleasure!

My suspicion is that many of our overseas readers are either Military or people who are working over seas.  For those of you in our Armed Services, please, once again, accept my humblest thank you for not only reading, but for defending my right to even have this blog!

I know also that many of our readers are Veterans and again, my deepest thanks to you as well.

I am seriously in awe and very humbled by how quickly this blog has taken off most of which has been in the past 8 months or so.  (Since KX joined the BAR team)

If you all keep reading....  we will certainly keep writing!

Thanks again!

Blogiversary just around the corner........ Best of Part One

Well, September the 4th is my one year blogiversary.  I have 406 prior posts, 1009 comments and 13,666 hits on the hit meter.

It's a lot of fun and I have so enjoyed sharing my opinions, my life, my thoughts and my dreams with all of my readers. 

I have readers from all over the world and I have had hits from every inhabited continent on the planet it's simply amazing that someone in South Africa would find something interesting to read on my little part of the interwebz.  The top 10 countries where I get the most hits are:

United States
Germany
United Kingdom
Canada
Russia
Australia
Ukraine
Italy
Singapore
France

That's a very interesting list to me and I'm truly happy to have readers from all over the world.

So enough of my back patting.  Over the next few days, I will be posting some of my favorite posts starting with my very first, below.


APATHY OR JUST PLAIN TIRED

With November just around the corner and yet another election under way, I can’t help but to find myself strangely apathetic towards the whole deal this time around. It’s really not like me to be so disinterested during an election cycle but the fact of the matter is that I don’t particularly like my choices

In the Texas Governor’s race, I have either Rick Perry or Bill White to choose from. Neither is a viable choice in my book so needless to say I will most likely vote 3^rd party, much to my husband’s angst. I realize that a vote for third party might be a vote for Bill White but to be honest with you, I see very little difference between Governor Good Hair and Mayor Monkey Face, except for the hair and face. Both are ineffectual and neither have the people of Texas’ best interests at heart.

My district is a solid conservative district and I really have no problems with my elected officials. It’s unfortunate, however, I have no control over how people in other districts vote. All I can really do is sit and wait and hope that the people in Sheila Jackson Lee’s district wake up and smell the coffee and vote her butt right out of office. Of course, that is about as likely as the possibility that she would refuse a photo op.

I think that my biggest problem is that I really do not see any difference in the two parties which represent the status quo. Both parties are corrupt and both parties are hungry for power. That is power over you and me. The only difference between the two is that one wants to control our daily lives by forcing us to drive cars they think we should drive, and force us to buy government healthcare, the other party wants to make our moral choices for us. Neither scenario is acceptable to me.

I can only hope that at some point, these grass roots movements will take hold and people will wake up and realize that they are simply voting away our freedoms, our individual liberties, our lifeblood simply by sticking to the status quo. My advice? Fire them all……..