Happy 1st Birthday to...OUT IN HOLLYWOOD! [Updated]

Dear readers...
It will be one year ago tomorrow that I nervously posted the first entry on Out In Hollywood and since then, this blog has threatened to take over my life! But I've loved it. All those years I spent as an intrepid, but closeted hard-news reporter, seem like a lifetime ago now. I would not go back for anything.
Who knew the time would be so ripe for a blog like this? If you look back 12 months, such celebrities as John Amaechi, Neil Patrick Harris, T.R. Knight, Lance Bass and David Hyde Pierce have come out, openly gay Rosie O'Donnell changed the face of daytime television during her stint on ABC's "The View," Ellen DeGeneres won another coupla Emmys and hosted the Oscars, Cynthia Nixon won the Tony Award, Melissa Eheridge won an Oscar, and "Brothers & Sisters" introduced us to Kevin, one of the most fully-developed gay characters in the history of network Television.
There was also the backlash against Isaiah Washington and Tim Hardaway for homophobic comments that fueled dialogue about slurs and attitudes. In addition, both gay marriage and Don't Ask, Don't Tell remained at the forefront of the political discourse.
I feel blessed to be at a news organization like the Los Angeles Daily News where my ideas and identity as an openly gay man are things that are encouraged and embraced. You will have to look long and hard for another mainstream newspaper that has a gay-themed blog done by one of their reporters. And in an entire year, I've never been asked to remove a post or to edit one of the more than 1,600 items that have appeared on the blog.
It was slow-going in the beginning. Day 1: 18 hits! Ugh. Day 2: 14 hits...(gulp) I was desperate for people to see the blog. I sent emails out to everyone I knew, took fliers to Outfest and passed them out, and bugged everyone in the office to read Out In Hollywood.
Two weeks in, the blog got more than 100 hits but the next day plummeted to 25. The most visits I got on a single day that first month was 130. But it climbed steadily after that. I remember last fall, the elation I felt at hitting 1,000 hits in a week. Now that weekly number hovers near 50,000 and it is very gratifying. The single-day record is 15,000-plus hits.
When I began this journey, I had never blogged before in my life! But 12 months later, it feels like it was something I was born to do. The creativity has been allowed to flow and my fingers fly across the keyboard with reckless abandon as they try to keep up with my thoughts.
I'll keep typing...so you keep reading!!!
- Greg

Related link: Out In Hollywood Anniversary: The People I've Met...