The Knitting Fiend

Yep. Instapundited!

Those of you who do not surf political blogs, and don’t know who or what Instapundit is may well ask, “What’s that mean?” Well, it means Glenn Reynolds, who runs the #1 blog measured by traffic volume, posted a link to my blog! Yep, at 4:39 pm EST on December 31 2005, Instapundit posted to “The Fifth Carnival Of Knitting!”

Now, I suspect you all think my reaction was “Terrific!” And, it sort of was. But. . . a link from Instapundit has been known to shut down small blogs with limited bandwidth subscriptions. And, I was at serious risk of exceeding my bandwidth because I had just recieved an automated message warning me that reached 90% or my monthly bandwidth budget at 3pm in the afternoon. (My plan provided 1 GB per month.)

Of course, when I recieved that message, I thought: “No hurry. I can increase my account next week. How much traffic can I get between 3pm and midnight on New Year’s Eve?”

Then, I shortly before my in-laws arrived for dinner, I peaked at my referrer logs and saw “it”. The type of recent referrer list that makes a small blogger jump for joy and shiver in fear:

1 http://www.google.co.uk/search…knitting cast off in rib&meta=
2 http://www.instapundit.com/
3 unknown
4 http://www.instapundit.com/
5 http://www.thedietdiary.com/bl…hp?s=sockulator &submit=Search
6 unknown
7 http://www.google.co.uk/search…hrug pattern&btnG=Search&meta=
8 http://www.google.com/search?s…ting tips %2D how to wrap rows
9 http://www.instapundit.com/
10 http://queerjoe.blogspot.com/Knit%20Blog%20Award%20Voting3.htm
11 http://www.sockamaniac.blogspot.com/
12 http://www.thedietdiary.com/kn…gfiend/poncho/ponchoLinks.html
13 http://elsapesa.blogspot.com/
14 http://www.instapundit.com/
15 http://www.instapundit.com/
16 http://www.instapundit.com/
17 http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=how to knit felt slippers
18 unknown
19 http://www.thedietdiary.com/blog/lu-knittingOddThings.php
20 unknown

Yikes!!

I mean, even though few of Instapundit’s visitors are likely to be knitters, somewill be. A fraction of those knitters may eventually return. But, if I exceed my bandwidth, visitors would see the “This site has exceeded it’s bandwidth” message!

What to do? I frantically logged on to my web hosts live chat help line, which, to my amazement, claimed to be online. I waited for someone to answer. No answer; (hey, it’s New Year’s Eve! )

I decided to believe the claim someone was there and try again. No luck. I tried a third time.

Amit answered!! He was in support, not sales, but he helped me anyway. (Yay, Amit!) For a an additional fee of $2/month, we got my bandwidth bumped up to 2Gig! And he did it at 6 pm Eastern Time on New Year’s Eve!! Woooo hoooo!