Wild Bill making a come back!

On December 8, I lost my composer, I lost my direction, and I lost my drive to keep up with the blog. I started Passionate America because I have always liked writing and thought I had something to say that was a little different from the usual.

At the beginning of my little adventure into the Blogsphere, I was fired up about this new media. Each day I celebrated with my family and friends each new visitor and took great joy each time my TTLB Ecosystem ranking increased. Five visitors each day slow increased until the day I received 7000 visitors in one day. At the height of my rise in the blog standings, I was ranked as a Large Mammal and regularly received 1000 visitors each day. I even inspired my brother Mike to start his own blog.

However, success creates fans and enemies. At first, I was my biggest fan, and then as time went by Passionate America started to develop a small following of loyal readers and commenters. I woke up each morning excited to read my email and the comments on Passionate America. Each day I explored new ways to increase my site traffic and refine the look and design of my site. Each day I read at least 15 to 30 other websites and posted 3 to 5 times each day. I enjoyed playing the virtual blog stock market at Blogshares and watched my site valuation rise to a 52-week high of $11,000. I felt like I was at the top of my game (once again) and nothing could stop me.

Then the negative attacks started. I will not blame all of the negative attacks toward Passionate America and me on other people. Some of it was in retaliation for the many posts I made about liberals. I started to feel untouchable. My ego expanded with each positive comment I received and my intolerance for negative comments grew exponentially until the day of my last venomous post on December 08, 2004. The negative attacks had served their purpose. I had lost my cool, I was so angry I really did not care if I ever posted again.

As I type these words, I am forced to reflect on the lesson in humility I have learned over the last month. It was a lesson that I desperately needed to learn and I am a better person for learning that lesson.

Wild Bill is back and I hope you will spend a little of your time each day helping me turn this website into the expression of Passion that I intended it to be. I would love to hear any ideas you might have for the future of Passionate America and I hope that I can add you to my growing list of friends. Thank you for your patience and sorry for the wait.