EXTRA: How old is 5 in Internet yrs?

I enjoy this postcard image of the Chicago skyline, and think it a shame that modern-day shots of the skyline feel compelled to go out into Lake Michigan and shoot toward the west -- rather than look along the Chicago River to the east

This weblog turns 5 years old Thursday night – the “wood” anniversary, I’m told.

With this being the 1,847^th post, I have to confess that the Chicago Argus has become a more substantial thing than I ever envisioned it would be on that evening a half-decade ago when I first created the site.

I THOUGHT I’D be doing the “semi-regular” posts that I alluded to in the introductory commentary on this site, and I figured it was a way to teach myself some new “computer-type” skills. I wasn’t sure if I could even keep the site going for a full year.

But from a personal standpoint, this site has helped keep me apprised to what is happening in Chicago largely because it requires me to pay attention to detail in a way I might miss otherwise.

And if any of my analysis has actually helped a reader comprehend why things happen the way they do, then perhaps there has even been a public benefit as well.

How little some things change, ...

I know for a fact that the biggest days I have ever had in terms of readership are the dates that coincide with the significant happenings in the investigation and prosecution of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

PEOPLE ON THOSE days were typing in his name to whatever search engine they could find in an effort to learn whatever they could about the man with the hair-do and the over-bloated ego whose judgment went al awry. Many of them were directed here!

... while others disappear completely

I also have to confess that the coming of Barack Obama (an official I first met on his first day in the Illinois state Senate) has helped to extend the life of this site. Because it gives the “Chicago” angle to many a national and international story.

So I’m not the only Chicagoan to benefit from having our city’s adopted son in the Oval Office. I don’t know what I’ll do four years from now when he finally steps down and has to focus attention on his presidential library.

I once parked atop 1st Base

Perhaps that will become a fight between interests on the South Side and Honolulu, and I’ll have to resort to following that. Along with the antics of Rahm Emanuel, the ongoing fight to replace Jesse Jackson, Jr., and whatever other scandals emerge from our public officials.

BUT CONSIDERING THAT this is Chicago and we can always count on an act of public policy insanity on the shores of Lake Michigan between Evanston and East Chicago, Ind., I’m sure I can keep this weblog running for as long as I have the energy.

So for those who actually bother to check in on a regular basis, I say thank you and hope you enjoy the historical video snippet featuring Gypsy jazz guitar player Django Reinhardt playing what is really our city's theme song (forget Frank Sinatra). For I know there have been many other websites that thought themselves serious news-related efforts that have come and gone during the time I have published this site about what I still consider to be “the greatest city on the planet.”

I feel fortunate to know that this weblog still has a life at 5. Although I’m wondering what that constitutes – Middle age, perhaps? – in Internet years.

  -30-