BabyCenter Was Here

I check the logs for this blog on a regular basis. I find it exciting to see that people are visiting the site and it helps motivate me to keep writing.

Typically, you learn the following about a visitor from the logs:

• IP address (and sometimes the company name)


• Location of IP registration


• Page(s) visited


• Linked from

This is not a lot of detail about visitors, but sometimes it is enough for me to figure out who they are. For example, my parents live in Parker, Colorado (near Denver). When I see someone hit the site from Parker, I figure it's probably my mom. In places like Ottawa, or Calgary, it's nearly impossible to figure out -- unless the company name is included with the IP. I have a friend who works for Petro Canada, so I can tell when he hits the blog from work.

A few weeks ago, I saw an interesting visitor pop up from California. The company name said "BabyCenter". I couldn't believe it! Someone at BabyCenter.com had deigned to visit my little blog. What was more exciting, they came back and visited again the next day. I imagined a crowd of office workers gathered around a single monitor, reading the blog out loud to each other in total bliss.

I wondered, what had I written that had prompted this celebrity house call? Looking at the postings for those two days, I think I figured it out:

I had suggested that BabyCenter.com was a pawn of the corrupt avocado lobby (aka Big Guac). Whoops.

I haven't seen them back since.