around the world

I am giving you some boring statistics

     Almost 82,000 visits to my blog.  I am amazed, and I think I have said that before.
     During the past week there were some interesting locations.
     People read my blog from:  United States, France, Poland, Germany, Chechia, Portugal, Ireland, Australia, Switzerland and Macedonia.
     I had to check, because I did not realize Czechoslovakia changed its name to Chechia.  Probably had something to do with spelling.  I have been to Prague, by the way.
     I would love to travel to many of these countries.
     My friends Dan and Linda are currently in Ireland.  Despite numerous trips to Europe, I have never been to Ireland or England.  Maybe they are why so many page views were from Ireland last week.
     I would like to go to Portugal.  Call me crazy, but that was the stepping off point for many explorers who came to the New World. I would love to stand and look over the ocean and see what they saw.
     I would love to go back to Germany to see Berlin and other sights I have missed.  And Poland is on my list because my dad was born there.
     My dad had several siblings:  Ernie, Fritz, Betty, Gert.  They, and my  grandparents, all have German as a nationality on their citizenship papers.  But my father has Poland on his papers.  It seems where my dad was born was taken over by Poland by the time they immigrated to the states.  So, he is the only one in his family that is Polish.  Go figure.
     Macedonia just sounds like a neat place, as does Montenegro.  I would like to go there because Nero Wolfe was born there.  If you don't know who Nero Wolfe is, ask Jackie.
     Maybe some of the people who have read this will end up inviting me to stay at their home when I do travel.
     With my luck, they would all be serial killers who prey on tourists.
     It's not a safe world.
    Life here is not quite so safe either.  I read 1,900 kids were killed by guns in the US last year.
     That shows how powerful lobbyists can be.  Back in the 80s a little boy was killed when a lawn jart accidentally hit him in the head.  It did not take long to ban lawn jarts.  Why?  Lawn jarts did not have a lobby.  And Congressmen are too afraid to do what needs to be done.
     Oops...getting political.  Sorry.
     Good night.