A day of milestones and thanks!

Today we celebrate the American holiday of Thanksgiving—a day for stepping back from our trivial concerns, giving thanks for those who enrich our lives, and showing renewed compassion for those less fortunate. Coincidentally, I celebrate today as well two milestones here at ‘Beetles in the Bush’—its 4th anniversary and its 500th post! It seems appropriate that this should occur on a day of thanks, as I owe a deep debt of gratitude to the readers of this blog for keeping me motivated through your comments and words of support. Four years and 500 posts is by no means a record—there are plenty of bloggers who have been around longer (and some who generate 500 posts in a single year!). Nevertheless, I’m starting to feel a bit like an “old-timer” in this relatively young pursuit with no thoughts of stopping anytime soon. I suppose I’m in it for the long haul.

To mark today’s milestones, I offer here a collage of thumbnails (click here to see full post)—each using an image from and linked to one of BitB’s previous 499 posts (with apologies to those of you who access this blog through dial-up). In the few cases where a post had no image I have used the generic Agelia petalii buprestid image that is this blog’s icon. If nothing else, the collage represents an interesting visual distillation of BitB in its entirety, but I hope you’ll take the opportunity to browse through the images and perhaps find some interesting posts that you may have missed the first time around. Thumbnails are arranged in order of post chronology (first to last)—hold the cursor over a thumbnail to see the post title, and click on the thumbnail to go to that post. Due to the huge number of hyperlinks in this post (uhm… 499 to be exact!), you might encounter one that does not link properly—I hope you’ll let me know if you encounter any such so that I may fix them.

Now also seems like a good time to solicit feedback on the direction of this blog—what you like about it and what you don’t. This is not pining for compliments, but a call for objective, constructive feedback. Maybe you’re not fond of certain subjects or have suggestions for topics you’d like to see more of. What about the balance between technical and enthusiast? Too wordy or jargony, or not academic enough? More quizzes or less (and should they be harder or easier)? If you prefer not to give this feedback in public, send me an email. BitB will never be all things to all people, but for those who do find something of interest here I’d like to do my best to provide content that is fun to read and appealing to look at.

Once again, thank you for your readership and have a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2011