The end of 2013 is now upon us bringing with it the chance to reflect on this year of blogging.  LifeIntrigued will turn 7 at the beginning of the year – truly hard for me to believe this has been a 6 year effort so far.  It is interesting to see how this blog has transitioned over the years.  In the beginning it was really a vehicle for my ramblings and musings on the many encounters and observations that result in everyday interactions in a society.  There are still posts scattered on this topic throughout the year, but over the last few years I have been leveraging the blog more and more as a mechanism to promote my photography interests.  Not only does it allow me look back and see how my own abilities are maturing in this field, but I enjoy putting my products out there for my viewers to enjoy and critique.  There is no better way to improve than having a third party weigh in on your efforts.. and trying to win over all of Linda’s fans out there.    This is the third year in a row I have met my goal of at least 6 posts per month.  Trust me, this isn’t getting any easier as the years go by and in truth, this year seemed like a little bit more work than the last two – considering all the near misses I had and a number of last minute posts that had to be made while out on the road. I blame project Aaaauuunooold for a lot of that and running took an extra toll on my free time thanks to the decision to fix a number of problems with the mechanics.  Some of the extra work was self imposed trying to up the overall quality of the images used throughout the year, especially the ones related to photography.  It probably doesn’t show in the optimized images used in the posts, but I spent a LOT of time in the digital darkroom this year trying to find the best shots I could and working  those to their maximum potential.  This can take days to get through which is the common cause for the tight deadlines at the end of the month – it’s a special moment when I can hit that publish button and reveal to all my viewers what I’ve been spending my time on.  The good news is the “at least one image per post” goal received another check mark this year! (admittedly the custom artwork has taken a back seat to the camera this year and likely going forward).

On the project front I took on some pretty big ones this year and yes, one is going to be moving into its third year come January.  My promise to you is Project Auuuunnooold will be closed out this year even if it kills me to do it (translated.. if it doesn’t get done this year Linda is GOING TO KILL ME).  Book recollections was an underperformer this season but some of that can be attributed to alternative sources of material that I figured would not be interesting to you.  There is a lot of reading that goes on during the course of a year, but a lot of that is technical manuals or skill augmenting for work – next year looks to be one for the latter due to new work responsibilities which will have my nose buried in a complex third party system.  I have a number of books queued up for this year to give some balance to those technical books, but time will tell how that goes.  Birding is still a huge attraction for me and a hobby that gives me plenty of challenges and equal amount of happiness.  Those around me know I like a challenge and birding gives me all I can handle – traveling to different regions of the U.S., searching for new birds for my list in all kinds of terrain, doing my best to get a decent picture of them (many times in harsh conditions) and working them in the digital darkroom to a point they are worthy for your viewing.  You will continue to see a large amount of bird posts which should make any fellow birders happy – I’ll try my best to mix in other topics so as not to boar those that lack a similar affinity to the feathered ones.

In closing I would just like to once again extend my heartfelt appreciation for everyone that takes the time to read my little blog and every time I see someone taking the extra time to write a comment I smile a little bigger.  Thanks everyone for putting up with my meanderings and <cough> political opinions </cough>.  I think there’s at least another year left in me (granted with a few more tweaks coming your way), so here’s to next year!

And now, the completion of the final blog goal for the year – the year end summary.

Hit the jump to see the 2013 stats!

• According to the WordPress Stats: To Date Total Posts 470 and 765 comments (including this one)
• According to the WordPress Stats: This Year Total Posts 75 and 239 comments (comments down from 290 in 2012)
• According to the WordPress Stats: Total number of tags – 1052
• Total blog pages this year (according to MS Word): 563 (over 20 pages more than last year)
• Total number of words this year (according to MS Word): 103,496 – a decrease of roughly 4,000 from last year (slacker!)
• Post topics (some posts had multiple categories) 2012 / Total
  • Birds: 25 / 97 (one more than last year!)
  • Fail: 0 / 5
  • General: 1 / 31
  • Insects: 0 / 6
  • Observation: 55 / 339
  • Phoadtography: 2 / 14
  • Products: 1 /20
  • Projects: 10 / 22
  • Ramblings: 0 / 11
  • Recollection: 10 / 58
  • Service: 1 / 52
  • Uncategorized: 0 / 0
  • Wildlife: 43 / 149
  • WIT: 0 / 2
• Blogs this year by month
  • Jan: 7  (Woot!)
  • Feb: 6
  • Mar: 7  (Woot!)
  • Apr: 6
  • May: 6
  • Jun: 6
  • Jul: 6
  • Aug: 7  (Woot!)
  • Sep: 6
  • Oct: 6
  • Nov: 6
  • Dec: 6
• Comments this year by month
  • Jan: 29
  • Feb: 27
  • Mar: 19
  • Apr: 19
  • May: 12
  • Jun: 14
  • Jul: 22
  • Aug: 36
  • Sep: 12
  • Oct: 22
  • Nov: 17
  • Dec: 12
• Posts with Most Comments
  • UB NOT ME- 12 (seems to be a theme building where the UB results generates the most comments)
  • A Few More Snakes With Feet- 10 (thanks to Dr. Drew hehehe)
• Writing style: no change on the conversational front but definitely creeping further up the edgy scale on some of them (mostly service oriented ones) and there is some obvious angst against the current administration – sorry, just have this thing when it comes to outright LIES
• Most common grammatical error: This year their and they’re ended up being my most common mistake.  The Firefox inline checking and the Word validation step tend to miss this error.  Lucky for me I have Linda who has the strange ability to point out grammar errors almost immediately when reading a post.  She is my third line of defense to make sure all my bad grammar doesn’t make it to the public.  Oh, and “there’s and theirs” is  still causing probs a year later.
• Number of WordPress upgrades: 0 – okay, this is getting out of hand now – three years and no upgrades – this must be addressed in 2014!
• Number of images used: (Once again I met my requirement of having at least one image per post)
  • Wildlife Photos – 271 – surprised to see this close to 40 down from last year – sure felt like a lot more than that
  • Other Photos – 260 (down over 80 from last year)
  • Custom Graphics – 3 (way down – tend to focus on the photography work instead)
  • TOTAL: 534 (All things considered, still pretty good!)
• Languages uses: 1 (unless you count Engrish and Brigrish)
• Completed Life List Items: 6
  • Once again ran the IVS 1/2 Marathon – No PR this year and first miss in a number of years – in fact the humidity that day owned me, but still finished under 2 hours.
  • Completed the Screaming Pumpkin 1/2 Marathon again  – this time missing the win by only 15 seconds
  • Ran the Steamboat 15K – pulled a PR even with learning a new running style
  • Ran the BIX7 actually crushing my previous PR
  • Blogging for a sixth year hitting my self-imposed 6 post/month quota .. although admittedly down to the wire on many occasions
• Maintained convictions: 6
  • Never giving Metallica a penny of my money (still not a dime)
  • Ban of RIAA backed musicians
  • Not giving Sprint a dime of my money
  • Never stepping a foot in Pressleys
  • Never listening to anything associated with Pearl Jam or watching SNL since their bad decision to joke about Benghazi
• Missed Goals: 1
  • I failed to get through my reading list for another year (sigh)… thanks to some great Xmas gifts the list has grown at least another 10 inches.
  • Project Auuuuunooooold is STILL in flight, but we have made it through some major milestones – just a little more time, just a little more time
• Recollections:
  • Books: 3 – now that is pathetic, but I do blame Project Auuunoooold for most of that
  • Games: 0 – all work and no play makes Brian’s projects go quicker
  • Movies: 0 – bad year for movies – really didn’t go to the theater much this year (did see a lot of them at home)
  • Concerts: 1 – actually saw a couple more I didn’t get to write about yet
• Posted 74 more items than my brother over at Dead Reckonings (he clocked in at 1) – This is a running joke, of course, since he prefers to go with this thing called “quality of post” – he definitely has me there but first and last post in January hmmmm (of course his Sliver program is a thing of beauty)
• Personal Revelations:
  • Same as last year and the year before … still upset at the pathetic action of our current administration.  Would be nice to have press that actually INVESTIGATED anything rather than just relying on spoon fed talking points.
  • Personally believe my photography work is improving – have a long way to go, but nice to see some steady improvement over the course of the year.
  • Service is still my pet peeve and sure enough another bad service post had to be made this year – and this one is right up there with my long time angst with Sprint
  • This year brought a lot of challenges in the running realm – there comes a point when you can’t continue damaging your body – this year came with a big decision to completely change my running mechanics – a decision that brought with it a lot of sweat and therapy but already reaping benefits.   This year also brought the toughest race of my young career – the IVS Half Marathon was a battle to get through, but not a constant reminder of why you train hard in the off season.  Good news is I redeemed myself a month later at the Screaming Pumpkin 1/2 Marathon – there is no better motivator than yourself
  • Linda will definitely be gunning for me this year in the UB competition – Definitely need to up my game since I’ve seen some of the shots she has already pulled off for the upcoming competition

Never one to want things to go stale, there are already plans underway for new topics and experiments.  This holiday I was able to spend a lot of time in the digital darkroom in a desperate attempt to get caught up.  As mentioned in a previous post, there are close to 650 shots already processed which brings me current to the July 2012 time frame – still a year off, but that should be easy to overcome with a little extra effort in the coming months (at least I made it through the Indy Zoo topic which was hanging over my head)

Now time to sit back, pop the cork and enjoy the year’s accomplishments.  Ladies and gentleman let’s toast to 6 amazing years!

Have a great New Year everyone!… 2013 is officially in the books