Today is the end of an era in WoW blogs, as Larisa announced the finale of the Pink Pigtail Inn. Larisa has played a non-trivial role in the life of this site, so I feel it only fitting to pay her tribute.
I started my blog a bit after Larisa started hers, but mine was an intentionally soft launch. Though my first post was in April 2008, I viewed those early months as a warm-up for July, when I would actually have time to write on a regular basis. I made a few posts, had the occasional comment, but things here were pretty quiet.
I eventually ended up on Rohan's blogroll at Blessing of Kings, and then one day out of the blue I got a comment on a random post expressing appreciation but pointing out that I did not have a contact email on my page. This wasn't really something that had occurred to me previously, as the idea that a reader might want to get in touch simply hadn't come up. Regardless, I dutifully sent this Larisa character an email, and added a gmail address to the site in case anyone else was similarly inclined.
I hope that she will forgive a bit of skepticism in hindsight - usually, when someone emailing you is supposedly female and from Sweden, the odds aren't that great. The truth is that Larisa turned out to be friendly, supportive, insightful, and thought-provoking. To this day, the PPI is still one of the top traffic sources to this site, and I'm pretty much certain that I have Larisa to thank for the fact that Sweden is the number six country on my "traffic by country" chart.
I don't know where the road is going to take this particular pink pig-tailed gnome mage, and I'll be keeping her spot in my blogroll in case she changes her mind. In the mean time, until we meet again, I wish her all the best and good luck on her journey.