It is celebration time around LifeIntrigued!  With the end of 2012 I am proud to announce that LifeIntrigued is officially FIVE years old.  Just remembering back it seems like yesterday I decided to jump on the blog bandwagon and flood the internet with my musings.  On the other hand, looking at the output it is pretty stunning at the amount of words and images that have piled up over those 5 short years.  Mimicking last year the goal was to minimally hit at least 6 posts a month.  As was pointed out to me over the holidays, a large number of the posts start out with references to racing the clock to make that happen…. and happen it did.  Fulfilling another New Year conviction, each month in 2012 indeed had at least 6 posts – one could argue over the quality of some of them, but there was no guarantee on that (that would be downright crazy).  For the record, the posts did tend to be more robust than the previous years so the fingers were cranking away.   Along with the quota, the image commitment was also met.  Every post had at least one graphic whether that be a custom graphic (like the header on this post) or a photo.  Photos continue their dominance in this category but there is a hidden agenda for that.  I am trying to grow my photography skills and being able to compare images throughout the year is a good indicator on what’s improving, what is regressing and areas that could use some renewed emphasis – flash photography is definitely in the latter category.  It is also very useful to get other people’s opinion on what they like, what makes them ill and most of all which ones to submit in the UB competitions – Note, that didn’t work out so well for me this year.  The blog format also provides some background on the various photographs which would probably be lost forever without it.  I said it last year and I’ll repeat it again this year.  LifeIntrigued would be meaningless without the loyal readers.  You carve out the time from your busy days to process my musing and provide validation and new perspectives with your many comments.  I’ll forever be indebted to you and extend my sincere appreciation.  With that, let’s keep another blog tradition going and provide the year end summary.

Hit the jump to see the 2012 stats!

• According to the WordPress Stats: To Date Total Posts 396 and 526 comments
• According to the WordPress Stats: This Year Total Posts 73 and 290 comments
• According to the WordPress Stats: Total number of tags – 948
• Total blog pages this year (according to MS Word): 541 – how weird is that, the EXACT same number of pages as last year – cue the Twilight Zone music
• Total number of words this year (according to MS Word):  107,300 – definite increase here of 4,200 over last year
• Post topics (some posts had multiple categories) 2012 / Total
  • Birds: 24 / 72
  • Fail: 0 / 5
  • General: 2 / 30
  • Insects: 3 / 6
  • Observation: 61 / 284
  • Phoadtography: 1 / 12
  • Products: 2 /19
  • Projects: 2 / 12
  • Ramblings: 0 / 11
  • Recollection: 16 / 48
  • Service: 1 / 51
  • Uncategorized: 0 / 0
  • Wildlife: 39 / 106
  • WIT: 0 / 2
• Blogs this year by month
  • Jan: 6
  • Feb: 6
  • Mar: 7 (Whoaaa Nelly)
  • Apr: 6
  • May: 6
  • Jun: 6
  • Jul: 6
  • Aug: 6
  • Sep: 6
  • Oct: 6
  • Nov: 6
  • Dec: 6
• Comments this year by month
  • Jan: 30
  • Feb: 11
  • Mar: 38 (holy cow! new record)
  • Apr: 27
  • May: 27
  • Jun: 22
  • Jul: 24
  • Aug: 32
  • Sep: 17
  • Oct: 19
  • Nov: 24
  • Dec: 19
• Posts with Most Comments
  • The UB 2012 Results are in – 13  (no surprise there seeing how everyone was taking Linda’s side)
  • Where the Buffalo Roam – 13
• Writing style: no change on the conversational front but definitely creeping further up the edgy scale on some of them (mostly service oriented ones)
• Most common grammatical error: Again, the combination of inline Firefox word checking and Microsoft Word syntax checking is catching most of the grievous errors.  Add to that Linda’s uncanny ability to spot ones that slip through (think she especially enjoys pointing those out to me) most of them come out alright – lately being getting killed by “there’s  and theirs” which of course is overlooked by the spell checker and sometimes missed by Word.  Words I intentionally make up do not count of course.
• Number of WordPress upgrades: 0 – Eeesh – two years without an upgrade – need to tackle this early in 2013 before I get too far behind
• Number of images used: (Once again I met my requirement of having at least one image per post)
  • Wildlife Photos – 309 (up 149 from last year)
  • Other Photos – 340 (down 166 due to not as many Phoadtography posts)
  • Custom Graphics – 45 (up by one – as with last year focusing less on custom and more on photographs – yes, I’m getting lazy)
  • TOTAL: 528 (Yes!)
• Languages uses: 1 (unless you count Engrish and Brigrish)
• Completed Life List Items: 6
  • Once again ran the IVS 1/2 Marathon – PR’d
  • Added another 1/2 Marathon (Screaming Pumpkin)
  • Ran the Steamboat 15K – this year fighting an upset stomach the night before but STILL PR’d
  • Ran the BIX7 – (another year another medal) – PR’d
  • Blogging for a fifth year hitting my self-imposed 6 post/month quota
• Maintained convictions: 5
  • Never giving Metallica a penny of my money (still not a dime)
  • Ban from RIAA backed musicians
  • Not giving Sprint a dime of my money
  • Kept the weight off (maintaining at 155 these days) (although need to drop a couple from the holidays)
  • Made it through the main running season without significant injury but did take a hit on the last 1/2 Marathon – been nursing that back now
• Missed Goals: 1
  • I failed to get through my reading list for another year (sigh) – and with the recent gifts that book tower is nearing the ceiling.
  • Running a little long on Project Auuuuunooooold – as Linda has pointed out to me
• Recollections:
  • Books: 7 – down 6 from last year – suckage
  • Games: 0
  • Movies: 3 (up by 2)
  • Concerts: 4 (new category this year)
• Posted 71 more items than my brother over at Dead Reckonings (he clocked in at 2 this year) – 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 March hmmmm
• Personal Revelations:
  • Thanks to a healthy dose of crappy government, this year definitely took a darker tone – based on the early results from this administration, this year it WILL not be getting any better anytime soon.
  • The Beast is getting a workout – I need to go back through the images this year but my photography hobby is improving – especially in the composition arena
  • Last year I warned: “2012 being an election year I am warning you it could get nasty at times next year”.  Well folks we know how that ended up.
  • Service is still my pet peeve and sure enough another bad service post is in the hopper
  • Continue to leverage my elective psychology classes – I’m watching you hehehehe
  • Didn’t get to spend a lot of time in the woods this year do to all the extra running and Project Auunoooold – that needs to change this year.
  • Adding the second half marathon this year was a tremendous load on both time and body (definitely worth the life list check!).  Pretty happy with the accomplishment and definitely have those two races on the agenda for this year as well – and maybe another big one … we’ll see

We are always looking to revamp and improve our little spot on the web.  Things have changed a lot over the last 5 years but there are plenty of things I still want to try out.  Still making plans for this year so no details yet.  I also need to take a good long look at this quota thing again.  That may drop a level – having to make posts while on vacation is a difficult task.  Thanks again for the large number of comments – that is really the cog that keeps this site going so keep them coming.  All but a few of the posts were fresh off the editor but there is a tremendous amount of backlog that needs to be processed – that Indy Zoo topic keeps nagging me – getting caught up will be a prime directive for this year.

In closing, I’d like to again express my appreciation for your time – both in readership and those that provide feedback through the comments.   I will be keeping this project up through 2013 but there will be some changes – don’t panic, I’ll ease you into them.  Now time to pop the cork on the champagne – ladies and gentleman let’s toast 5 wonderful years!

Have a great New Year everyone!… 2012 is officially in the books