That was refreshing! Taking a month off from blogging (or at least from daily blogging) was a great break and I’m feeling all bubbly and tingly — or maybe that’s just because I used my wife’s shampoo this morning.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to getting back in my rhythm and I’ve got a few story ideas and links that I’ve stashed while I was away that I’ll probably be getting into in the next few days. Of course, I noted that I wasn’t the only blogger taking time off and I laughed outloud last week when I got my copy of the Wall Street Journal and saw an article about bloggers on vacation (subscription required to read the link, sorry). The story talked about how the big name bloggers such as Michelle Malkin and Andrew Sullivan handled their vacations and the overall drop in readership despite lining up distinguished guest bloggers to keep the blog lamps lit. It appears that many readers have a distinct affinity for the person who’s name is on the blog and they may tend to visit less often when that person isn’t writing.

This interesting information leaves me feeling a bit odd, considering my experience. Of course, I have little in common with Malkin, Reynolds, Sullivan, Hewitt, Jarvis, et al, when it comes to the blogosphere. We all blog, but I’m a grunion to their whales even though we swim in the same sea. For example, their readership dropped by tens of thousands of visitors per day while they were gone; I can just barely say I’ve had tens of thousands of visitors stop by here in total in the 18 months since I put out my electronic “welcome” sign. Perhaps some of the uber-bloggers’ wayward readers were coming over here in August because my average daily visitors actually went — er, uh — up while I was on vacation. When I kicked back, I was averaging close to 80 visitors a day. That was great, and a heady change from the days when breaking into the 30s was cause for a celebration. Now, a month after leaving this blog largely in the hands of my daughters the Mall Diva and Tiger Lilly, the daily average is nearly 100 visitors (and now the Reverend Mother is about to make her much anticipated debut as well)!

Ooooo-kay. This is good news, right? But how long before they start lobbying for a change in the name of this blog? This makes for an interesting problem for me, and hopefully, more interesting reading for you.

Oh well, the family that blogs together … uh, fights over the computer.

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