The Natural State Hawg is now one month old!

That's right, folks. The Natural State Hawg is officially one-month-old today.



Well, actually, it was one-month-old on Aug. 17 but I really didn't notice that I'd passed that milestone until earlier today. However, I should point out that I almost forgot my wife's birthday today, so it's pretty well established that my memory is horrible.

Ah, and what a month it's been. So far, I've written about the heartache that comes with being a Pittsburgh Pirates fan, established the All Arkie Army, griped about those misguided souls who picked the Razorbacks dead last in the SEC West, praised the formerly dull state of Oklahoma, waxed poetic about both Elvis' greatest film and rat terriers, shared the best cat names to be found anywhere, declared Jeff Foxworthy my nemesis, won an award, mentioned the ultimate microbrew and ridiculed carpetbagging demonstrators.

And it will only get better.

Some people might argue that it couldn't get any worse, of course.

At any rate, I do hope that all those people happy about the anniversary of the beloved The Natural State Hawg blog don't get so carried away by the celebratory spirit that they do something stupid. No, I don't want to hear about rioting, couch burning, drunken looting or anything of the kind. Have fun, kids, but behave yourselves, yeah?

Of course, I've learned a thing or two during the past month and I'll go ahead and bore everyone with that stuff right now.

1. Anyone who thinks running a blog is the way to fame or fortune either knows something the rest of us don't or is living in a fool's paradise. I'm still not convinced ads work terribly well. Who goes around clicking on ads, anyway? I do from time to time, but that's only if I see something that's terribly interesting (rarely) or read a blog I particularly like (fairly often). This is all fun for me and, to that end, ad clicks are nice but Diggs and comments are much better.

2. The phrase "living in a fool's paradise" is wonderful. I picked that phrase up when I was a kid from reading something by James Thurber. I've read a lot over the years and tend to steal from time to time. Hopefully, that leads to some vaguely interesting content -- the thing that I'm convinced creates traffic.

3. Entrecard is great. Thanks to Entrecard, I've gone from almost no traffic to enough traffic to make all of this worthwhile. I've met some great bloggers, to boot, and I'm sickly jealous of the talents of a lot of them. Oh well.

4. Showing appreciation is good. To that end, I put a policy in place just the other day as a way of thanking the people who are blessed with good taste and spend their hard-earned Entrecard credits buying ads on my blog. All of you Entrecarders who choose to buy an ad on my widget will get a review from me at the Entrecard site. Yes, and what could be more valuable than the coveted The Hawg Seal of Approval? A lot, but it's the thought that counts.

5. BlogCatalog is great, too. I've met a lot of great bloggers over there and have realized some traffic.

That's about it. I promise I won't whoop it up every month, but will probably jump up and down if I keep at this for an entire year. As always, thanks for visiting.