Fifth Anniversary for Insects in the City

Five years is a long time in the world of the Internet.  Five years ago there was no iPhone with GPS.  The iPad was still on the drawing boards of Silicon Valley, and the Apple App store was introducing a unique idea for consumers--adding apps to your phone to help you do everything from buying movie tickets to finding a nearby restaurant, to timing and tracking a morning run.  The Android system was just introduced by T-Mobile in 2008, and George Bush was still President.

So imagine my surprise when my computer told me that today marks a big anniversary. Five years ago I posted my first blog for Insects in the City. This post marks my 280th blog post...maybe not that many for many more prolific bloggers, but a lot for me.  At the time I started I didn't know if I could keep up with a regular blog, nor did I even know exactly what a blog was. During the past five years I've come to appreciate the power and usefulness of this form of social media.

I've learned from writing, and reading other cyber-bloggers, that blogs are a great way to learn from people who have the time to sift through all the noise in one little corner of the world and tell you what's important (or at least what they think is important). This is a significant service in this age of information overload. I encourage you to seek out other bloggers who focus on topics that interest you, and subscribe.  I may not know a lot about how to run a pest control business, but I know a few things about the pests that keep you in business (I have to sift through lots of information related to pests and IPM daily). One of my goals in blogging is to save you some time keeping up with changes in the science of pest control.

A blog serves as a great place to store and organize information. I frequently refer people to old posts on subjects like how long bed bugs can live without a blood meal, identification and control of carpet beetles, and how to identify whether a snake skin is from a venomous snake.  And I frequently look stuff up from my old posts when I need to refer to forgotten links or facts. In case you haven't tried it, try using the search button in the upper left portion of the home page for Insects in the City.  There's a decent chance you may find an old post that can help you solve a pest problem.

One thing I didn't expect to do when I started a blog was to tell about the passing of personal friends in the pest control industry. Friendships are one of the best things about this industry, and I've been privileged to get to know many of you. Saying goodbye is sometimes made a little easier by being able to write about good people like Grady Glenn or Don Stroope or Jeff Seabrook.

Of course we've had fun too. I've enjoyed sharing creative videos, cartoons, and even a little Simpsons.  I hope you've enjoyed some of these as much as I have sharing them.

Most of all, I have enjoyed hearing from many of you about how you've found information here to be helpful or entertaining in some way. Feedburner, the internet website counter, tells me that 321 of you now subscribe to Insects in the City. I consider it an honor that so many of you are willing to let me stuff your email boxes with my slanted perspective on the world of pest control.

So thanks to you readers.  Without you I would have stopped writing a long time ago.  I look forward to sharing with you and learning with you for another five years.