Who in the world is searching for me, I wonder?

On this blog, I have a common tool used my many web sites, which is a hit meter. I routinely check to see what sort of traffic I am getting and from where. I am sometimes just amazed at what brings people to my blog.

Sometimes a picture I use will be a popular topic and people find it through Google search. Since Google owns Blogger, they send people to their own products first. I comprehend that. Sometimes I find web searches for topics upon which I have written. I understand that, too. Just since I started typing, I found one new hit from ask.com looking for a picture I used on my blog months ago of "Secret Squirrel".

Then there are the web searches that amaze me. I find quite a bit of web searches for my name. There are three people in North America named Troy LaPlante of which I am aware. Me, of course, and one man in Maine, another in Canada. Both make sense to me, since LaPlante is a French name often found in French-Canadian populated areas such as northern New England and Quebec province.

Sometimes the searches for my name are even more specific, such as "Troy LaPlante Selma NC". Sometimes, "Troy LaPlante blog". Many of these searches are in the Charlotte area, which I would think is bizarre, since if the search is by anyone I know there or by coworkers in that area (my company HQ is in Charlotte), then you would think that they would either bookmark the URL or just type in my URL, troylaplante.com rather than search via Yahoo or Google.

Today I found a search for me out of Dallas with the search parameters being "troy laplante of selma, north carolina". I found one from Fayetteville, NC for "troy laplante". Sometimes I even find that my blog has been forwarded in email and some people check their yahoo or AOL web mail and link from there. Go figure. I never knew that someone as unknown as me was so popular.

To the thousands of people who have visited my blog and the many local readers, I give you my sincere thanks. I am humbled by your paying attention to this boring, lonely, ordinary guy.