It’s been a while since I did an update here… In fact, I don’t rightly know if I have ever given an official update.

Anyway, strange things are afoot over here at Arclight Enterprises. When I started this thing back in the end of February I wondered if I would be able to make a go at it or if I would just be doomed to obscurity like so many others. After all, I’m not professional, I don’t have any sponsors, advertising or notoriety. I simply had things to say and one way or another I wanted to get them out there. If people read them, great. If not, then at least I could say that I got something out there. However, it didn’t end there. I wanted to advocate for change as the turn that this country has taken recently makes me physically ill. I may not be able to influence Washington (or even Madison or St. Paul), but if I at least knew that there were others out there who had the same drive as I do, maybe there was some hope left.

Well, the experiment so far has been a staggering success. This week I crept past my 18,000th visit, which as far as I am concerned is pretty good considering this is really nothing more than the nonsensical ramblings of an opinionated bastard. But more importantly, this blog has become a tool that has not only allowed like minds to connect, but has allowed dissenting minds to voice their opinions and has opened up some outstanding conversation.

The exciting part is that we are still just getting started here. The odometer hasn’t even rolled over the eight-month mark yet and we already have 20,000 visits in sight. More importantly is that things are getting noticed by people on both sides of the divide. From my lunch with Bruce Benidt to a recent request by the Alliance for American Manufacturing for me to write an article for them regarding rural manufacturing and globalization (click here to read it), people are taking notice of us – and that is good.

My goal is not to change anybody’s mind. It is, and always has been, simply to get you thinking about things. Only you can change your mind, I just hope to open it up a bit and stimulate those little nerve endings that are so often sitting dormant. If I can get just one person to consider something new, I have achieved my goal. It’s really just that simple. That is also why I so openly invite conversation and encourage dissent. Don’t forget that I am out there learning right alongside you. I may be the master of this domain but that does not mean that what I say is set in stone. I may be an opinionated bastard, but I’m not a closed-minded bastard.

But most importantly, I would like to point out that without you, this means nothing. Your input and comments, your own blogs, your ideas, opinions, facts.. They all help to weave this web and perpetuate this think tank that we have inadvertently created. While each one of us is out there alone, we are also each a cog in this machine. Every one of you brings something new to the table. Every once in a while I like to go through my blogroll and just study each individual, amazed at the variations that each of us bring forward. It’s really quite stunning when you sit back and look at the whole scope of our achievements so far. And as I said, we are still just in the infant stages.

Anyway, with that said… I couple more points of (non) interest. I have been trying to tweak things in with the blog and make it more visually appealing and less cluttered.

• I have been tracking the outgoing clicks and realized that nobody visited my links (although people love the Pinups for Vets link which gets many clicks a day). So I moved them to their own page and cleaned out everything but the blog rolls, which actually do see outgoing traffic.
• I added the FeedBlitz option to the side bar for you people who like to get fun things in their email. It’s basically just an email subscription to the blog in a newsletter form. It’s cool if you’re into that sort of thing.
• I also added the Bloglines option for anybody that uses Bloglines. If you’re not familiar with them, they’re pretty much just a feed aggregator so if you already use an aggregator (like My Yahoo!) it’s kind of redundant.
• For those that don’t know, that link over there for Blogpatron is actually legit. I joked about it with my carbon offset rant, but it’s actually a real donation box much like the Paypal or Amazon options. I just like Blogpatron more than the others. I don’t ask for donations, but I have had people ask if I take them… So there it is.

Anyway, that’s about it for now. Again, thank you all and I hope we continue to learn and spread our web of knowledge and insight. It may be a tough job carrying the world on our shoulders, but if not us, then who?