Yesterday marked the death of one of the most influential people in the history of music, Michael Jackson. At the young age of 50 the King of Pop died suddenly after being rushed to a hospital after suffering a heart attack. Unless you’ve been hiding in a cave I’m sure you’ve noticed the public response to this tragedy has been nothing short of amazing and although his life has also been full of some not-so-good scandals and legal issues, it’s good to see that upon his death everyone’s remembering him for the worldwide icon and voice of a generation that he was to many us (including myself).

All of this Internet activity also got me wondering how many new Michael Jackson related Hubs had been published since the news of his death had broke yesterday afternoon. After doing a little bit of research and after a few searches I estimate that there has been over 150 new Hubs published on the King of Pop. I guess that’s our HubPages way to saying goodbye to a guy who has impacted so many lives — good thing that all of his music will still live on forever.

p.s. The guy sure was a showman, eh? — wow.

Man, I love this job. Each day you never know what interesting person you’re going to meet and who you’re going to be able to connect with from who knows where. Thanks to the good ol’ Interwebs, the HubPages community is made up of awesome people from all over the world, which makes it even more interesting that I had a new Hubber actually stop by the HubPages HQ today so that she could get a quick lesson in all things Hubbing.

Her name is Annette and her HubPages profile is Falcon Flyer. Currently she doesn’t have anything set up on her profile yet and she doesn’t have any Hubs published, but now that she’s been given the HubPages 101 by yours truly, I’m sure you’ll be seeing her Hubs in no time. She’s planning on writing about topics that have to do with teaching (she taught for several years), subliminal information (she knows her stuff) and traveling (she’s been to Maui 5 times). Be sure to keep your eye on her, she’s bound to be a superstar Hubber before we know it.

Me, Frank and Annette pose for a great shot

As many of you Hubbers have probably noticed, I’ve been a little out of rhythm here lately when it comes to posting things on HubPages and chatting in the forums. This is due to a few reasons, such as the 30 Day HubChallenge (which I hope to continue somehow), my family vacation/wedding planning trip back home and the thing that has had the most impact on affecting my HubPages mojo — my shoulder injury/surgery that I have been dealing with for the past 3 months.

If you didn’t already know, I wrecked my bike heading home from work and ended up getting the worst type of what’s called an AC Joint separation in my shoulder. Basically I tore 3 ligaments that connect my clavicle (collar bone) to the rest of my shoulder. Yeah, it was pretty nasty. But, I’m feeling much better now and I can even sit and type at my laptop now for as long as I want without my shoulder starting to hurt like you-know-what. So, things are going good right now for me and my poor, injured shoulder and now that I’m able to be a little more productive than I’ve been, I thought that it would be good to put together a little video of what all went on during the day of my surgery. Check out the video below when you get a chance or watch it over here on YouTube.

Sometimes I’m amazed at what Hubbers can get out of writing on HubPages besides a little extra cash in their pocket. I’ve heard of celebrity encounters and other not-so-normal happenings because of a seemingly innocently published Hubs, but when I was reading a forum called Thank You Hub Hubpages I read about something that I’ve never heard of happening to a Hubber. For the first time (that I know of) HubPages had somehow connected a Hubber named fortunerep with her long, lost uncle. This happened after she published a Hub titled I Googled My Uncle Ross and somehow, miraculously, her uncle not only found her Hub she wrote about him, but he also commented on it so that they could connect up. Ah, behold the power of Googling yourself.

Also, I guess that it’s also worth mentioning that her uncle Ross isn’t just a normal uncle, he’s also a once world Karate and kickboxing champion. Check out the video below to see him in action and I’ll be sure to update you with any other awesome HubPages happenings that I hear about.

On Monday, for the first time, we surpassed 1 million hubs viewed in a single day.

According to Quantcast, HubPages is now #146 on the most visited US web sites.

In my view, this is really great recognition of the interesting topics that are daily being published on HubPages.  We are community-powered content.

So, all you Hubbers out there, great work!