Google Analytics Creates a Mystery!

Time to pull out your pipes and put on your mystery solving hats: Google Analytics has given us a whopper.

In perusing the various stats available about this little blog of ours, I came upon a neat little map that shows where the traffic is physically coming from. For the most part, it was what I expected to see. Mostly traffic from Texas, but with a significant number of hits coming from Arizona (Jeff) and Louisiana (Me, The Lovely Ms. Bigler, and The Enchanting Ms. Rush). I also expected a few randoms, which we also see here.

Alas, I must confess that I had also secretly hoped, but not really expected that the blog had been found and dearly loved by some anonymous and unrelated fans of our fantasy league. And it has!

Ladies and Gentlement, I give you Ashburn, VA!

















Wait, what?!?!?

VIRGINIA!?!?!?

They fucking love us in Virginia. 26 unique, returning readers. More than even from Dallas. Let me and Wikipedia tell you a little more about Ashburn, VA, the biggest secret fan of our blog:

Ashburn was originally called Farmwell (variant names include Old Farmwell and Farmwell Station) after a nearby mansion of that name owned by George Lee III. The name Farmwell first appeared in George Lee's October 1802 will and was used to describe the 1,236 acre (5.0 km²) plantation he inherited from his father, Thomas Ludwell Lee II. A section of Farmwell plantation west of Ashburn Road, a 580 acre (2.3 km²) tract, was purchased in 1841 by lawyer and almost vice-president John Janney, a Quaker, as a summer home. John Janney called the property Ashburn Farm (first known written use is 1870 when he sold the property). It is likely he named the farm after family friends named Ashburn.[1] In 1895, Ashburn Farm was purchased by Senator William Morris Stewart. Local legend has it that the village, known until then as Farmwell or Farmwell Station, got its new name after lightning struck an ash tree on Senator Stewart's farm in 1896. The ash tree is rumored to have burned and smoldered for a week and attracted spectators from miles around. Since the Post Office had been pressing for a new name for the village (to avoid confusion with Farmville in Prince Edward County, Virginia), and the Senator was the area's leading citizen, the villagers renamed the village after the burning ash tree.[1] Ashburn was also the vacation destination of many Presidents, like Woodrow Wilson, as well as many of Washington's other politicians. They would take the only Washington and Old Dominion Railroad line out to Ashburn, which contained some upscale hotels and restaurants. Most of these hotels and restaurants have long since been destroyed or dismantled, but a few can still be seen along the main street of Ashburn Road.

Sounds charming! This seems too good to be true! And I'm sorry to say that it is. Because in doing a little more digging into the seemingly lovely Ashburn, VA, a shocking and horrible truth became apparent:

"Redskins Park", the headquarters for the Washington Redskins football team of the National Football League, is located in Ashburn.

Mother of God.

I first thought this could be a coincidence, or maybe just one randomly placed person who clicked "refresh" a million times on the blog, but no. The image you see isn't all traffic, but only unique, returning users. So if one person hit refresh a million times, it would only be counted as a tiny circle, instead, we have 26 unique visitors from Ashburn who have since returned multiple times and even viewed specific blog posts (you can check traffic to all posts individually, instead of just the front page). I thought maybe that one of us was being counted as being from Ashburn, VA because Verizon Business has its headquarters there, but the IP addresses are Ashburn local. So I went and tracked each of us down by usage area. For instance, I'm pretty sure Jeff is reading the blog from 3 different IP addresses. We're all accounted for, and some of you don't even bother to check the site once a day you fat drunk lazy worthless fucking assholes.

It appears that our blog in fact has interested readership from the Heart of Redskin territory. It now seems possible that Jim Zorn or Dan Snyder himself is a reader of this blog. I can only hope that they come forward. But until then, the mystery remains:

WHO ARE YOU, READERS FROM ASHBURN, VA?!?!?!?!?