Nice Round Numbers

Somewhere between 1500 and 1600 days since I started this blog, I got my 10,000th pageview. I have reason to doubt--having sporadically focused intently on the metrics--that this number can claim any accuracy; nonetheless, it's a milestone, in the shifty/figurative sense that most people use the term. 

At around the same time, my work truck hit 100,000 miles. This number is more accurate, although I have reason to believe that there is an error on the order of .01% or more due to the fact that guys driving on logging roads and even more minor tracks must back up from time to time, sometimes for uncomfortably long stretches. 

As has been the case since Dad's '65 Fury III hit 100k sometime in the 70's, I missed the exact moment. As usual, I could see the milestone at a distance, but missed it when it passed me by at close range. When the work rig hit 100 kilo-miles, I was probably staring at a cloud formation. When the 10 kilo-pageview turned (by some Russian bot interested in heatilators, most likely), I was riding bikes with the kids, or maybe in the bathroom. 

As a kid, missing the turning-over of the 100,000 mile mark was a huge event, and missing it must have hurt. Or, I did see it, but the nearly-50-year-old me cannot care enough to recall. Even numbers just don't fascinate anymore. Not even big ones (the blogger in me recognizes: 10,000 pageviews in 4+ years is nothing to brag about). Maybe this is why I insist, whenever asked to estimate a distance, or the time, or whatever, on providing a decidedly un-round number: It's about 4.27 miles. It must be nearly 9:39. When, by dumb luck or conniving knowledge, I am correct, people are astounded and impressed, far more than they would be had I said 4 miles or 9:30.

So farewell and f-off, milestones. I will wind and wend forward and sideways, looping and halting, enjoying the corkscrew cloud at mile 99,992 or the hit from Trinidad and Tobago more than the nice round numbers.