John: Exit Stage Left

Taking a cue from our inspiration, this Beaverhausen has decided to retire from the blogging game. I've been giving the whole project a lot of thought lately, and it seems to me that four years and upteen thousands of posts is a pretty good run. Lord knows, the blogosphere has grown from our early days among to the innovators to the point now where it's getting harder and harder to contribute anything different from a thousand other voices. At the same time, as Ben has noted, newer forms of online intercourse have proliferated.

I'm not ruling out a return to the web in some form in the future. (In truth, I'll likely never leave, as I continue to utilize tools like Flickr and the various social nets.) I feel pretty good about what was achieved here. Our site tracker counts around 4,500 uniquie visitors a month. So it feels good to just go ahead and end my pseudocareer as a blogger on a relatively high note.

One thing I am going to miss is the honor of being among the bloggerati. Sure, the blogging network was demented and sad, but it was social. I was always surprised by strangers who would randomly approach me to say "Oh, you're Beaverhausen." "Well, half of it, I'd always say."

And that brings me to the saddest part of shutting down my beautiful blog machine: B'haus has been a big part of a very cool daily relationship with my best friend and confidante, who just happens to live 3,000 miles away. Authoring, editing and running a website with someone so close to me has been frustrating at times, but mostly it's been a fascinating and fun way to interact and get to know, even better, what makes each of us tick. So Ben, to you I say thank you so much for sharing this special endeavor with me. Don't be too sad that this chapter is closing. It only brings us that much closer to figuring out what that next big thing is, and when we find it, I trust we'll still be encouraging, baiting, and engaging each other just as much as we ever did here at Beaverhausen.