Today, I turn 38 years old–another year successfully navigated without too many close encounters with mortality is reason enough to celebrate. However, as people with too much time to think often do, I've been reflecting on my personal life “to-do” list, and find many of the tasks pencilled in for before my 38th birthday are being carried over as incomplete. Then again, the list needs some heavy revision.

Success is where you find it. And looking around me, based on my current priorities, this has been a pretty successful year.

My ambitions in life these days center on spending more time doing the things I like and with my family and friends rather than on the material and professional.

We had a cookout with friends on Sunday; September 10 is also the birthday of our friend and neighbor Ying Hui, so we had a consolidated event in her backyard. It was the first time in a long time I've had anything closely resembling a party on my birthday; it felt good. I felt…established. Settled.

NEWS RELEASE
Dot.Communist reports 200% growth in monthly traffic year-to-year, and 500% annual revenue growth for FY 2002

BALTIMORE- Privately-held weblog and commentary provider The Dot.Communist announced today that it recorded 8,190 page requests in August of this year, up from 4,010 for the same period in the previous year, and from 1,143 in August 2000. August's showing followed a record month in July of 9,242 page requests, a 190% increase over July 2001's total of 4,661 page requests.

Seperately, Dot.Communist reported $5 in revenue from its merchandise sales on Café Shops.com, resulting in a 500% annual growth in revenue.

“Given this phenomenal growth in traffic and revenue, even in a recession year, we see this as a sign that the digital economy is ready for a rebound,” said Dot.Communist chief content officer Sean Gallagher. “We hope to continue this growth until we can get venture capital, issue an IPO, and cash out as quickly as possible, er, I mean, build value for shareholders.”

This release includes certain forward-looking statements which should generally be ignored.