Oh how time flies by.
This week, Cactus Hugs (a fine blog that you should really check out sometime) is turning a year old. I will pause for a moment to celebrate with a dance:
When I got shit canned from the local radio in December of 2013, I was not sure exactly what the hell I wanted to do. When something you love doing is suddenly yanked away from you after doing it for 20 years, there is a bit of an adjustment period.
At first, just being able to sleep in past 4 a.m. made it all fine. But, as time went by, I would run into so many of you in The Coachella Valley who were so nice and so boisterous about your support of the old radio show. I would get asked time and time again, “when are you going back on the radio?”.
I missed interacting with you guys and talking to you about stuff that no one else in town was talking about – and it seemed that at least some of you missed that too. Radio was not going to be an option so I instead launched Cactus Hugs last June – even though I had seriously convinced myself that no one would actually read the damn thing.
But, much to my (and The Coachella Valley’s media elite’s) surprise, you guys did! Since last June, there have been over 800,000 views of Cactus Hugs. 264,000 of them came on an iPhone, 50,000 on an iPad, 33,000 on a Galaxy S5, and 3 of you amazing bastards attempted to browse the site on one of these fancy things.
95% of of you guys are reading in The U.S., 2% in Canada (what’s up Snow Birds!), and there have even been views in Angola, Liechtenstein, and Uzbekistan. And, since over 70% of you are reading on your smart phone, I have been working to implement some things to make your reading experience better and faster.
I can not thank enough all of you who have liked, commented on and shared stories from the Facebook page, followed Cactus Hugs on Twitter, grabbed a deal or two, and have just made it a habit to stop by to read an article or two (or 500) from time to time.
I was not sure what Cactus Hugs was going to be a year ago and I know that it would be nothing at all without you and your amazing support.
Thank you for everything,
Casey
