I started this blog back in 2007, but Blogger didn't start tracking statistics until Google acquired them in 2009, so my blog stats only reflect the last three years. I admit that once a month or so I spend too much time looking at these numbers, but blogging has been a strange adventure for me, and it helps to know which posts customers like best. Except I'm not so sure most of my readers are customers. In fact, the stats say that most of my readers aren't even from Minnesota!
How the tamarind tree saved Little Anna's life is not the post I would have guessed would be my most popular. I thought for sure that Mom! Mom! There's a crocodile in our living room! would be more popular, but it only got 15 reads! That is so sad. A crocodile is much scarier than a rabid dog.
A friend who understands these things told me that I get about 50 hits each time I post to my blog. But that number keeps growing because most of you only check my blog every so often, not every day. An average post now gets a few hundred readers altogether, but thanks to Google and other search engines, some posts keep getting new readers every day. My tamarind tree post just broke the 10,000 reader mark! I am proud of that, but also shocked. This blog thing is surprisingly popular.
Some of you may be surprised that My remembrance of Ped is not my most popular post. Actually, it is, but most of the people who read it saw it in the Star Tribune which did not link to my blog. I have no idea how many people read the version the Star Tribune published, but I've been told it was in the tens of thousands.
The trial of the woman who hit and killed Ped is coming up soon. I will be there, but I do not think I will write about it. I am still very sad that Ped is dead. Everything I wrote in my remembrance of him is still true. We here at True Thai miss Ped every day, but I am comforted each time I check my stats and see that a few dozen more people have read about him since I last checked. Since I wrote about Ped's death, many of True Thai's customers and friends have made generous donations to his family. His nephew Shawn works at the restaurant. If you fast forward to the very end of that Best of the Block video about True Thai, Shawn's at the bottom of the screen with a big smile.
The spirit of Ped is in that picture.
