Our Amps Go To 11

Another full year of blogging is in the books! I guess more literally, in the Word document that contains the annual collection of posts. Hard to believe our little production at Intrigued has been going this long. Most of that endurance is thanks to all my readers whose time and comments make the effort so fulfilling. Over the course of this year I once again made new friends, some in far off lands (note, that includes basically anywhere outside the continental US). The world and the people in it continues to fascinate me on a daily basis. I get a bit more knowledgeable with each new observation, more intrigued with each new find and every resulting introspection or recollection. The experiment of breaking off my wildlife posts from the mothership has ended up becoming a flagship of its own taking command of a majority of blogging time. I still tend to the parent with posts covering my other hobbies, social observations and when required commentary on a broken political system. Meanwhile the Wildlife division has been busy bringing an amazing number of new birds to my life list along with forages into the larger and the smaller that walk, crawl, slither and fly past my camera’s sensor.

This year also brought new opportunities for me thanks to a lot of encouragement from my wife. I agreed to give two presentations, one focused on birding and blogging to our local Audubon Society and then again later in the year to the local camera club (thanks to the president of that club being present at my Audubon talk) with more of a technical photography slant. As I had feared those presentations took a tremendous amount of time to gather images and prepare the presentation, but in the end, extremely glad I took them up on those offers – two of the most enjoyable times I’ve ever had publicly speaking. I have spent a career giving very technical presentations to small and large groups as part of my day job. it was refreshing to talk about the hobbies that consume my free time outside of those hours. That event also got my butt in gear to finally get most of the Texas birding shots processed and posted (thus the huge boost in my birding list).

Admitted, I am a few days late on this assessment tradition. At the end of each year I like to take a moment to look back at the year’s output as a complete body of work. Did I hit my self-imposed monthly quota, was there any progression on my photography, what posts did my readers like, and where did I miss the mark. So with that, I bring you the 2018 year end summary. Hit the jump below to see the individual stats and accomplishments. However, before you do that, I do need to thank some people. First of all, those that take the time to read my musing. Without you, this would pretty much just be a long talk with myself. Knowing that others are investing time pushes me to try and put out the best product I can. It is also a way for me to share my experiences, learn from other perspectives and gather feedback on IDs and my photography – all things that add to my personal growth and for that extremely appreciative. Next on the list is my brother Ron. He was the catalyst for blogging and provides a tremendous amount of help with his post comments and even more behind the scenes. He helps me research IDs and critiques my shots allowing me to at least act like I know what I’m talking about. Not to mention a lot of the photographs that make it on the blog are a result of birding outings we go on together. The person that probably endures the most thanks to this blogging affliction is Linda. I cannot count of the number of times she has had to pull yeoman .. err yoewoman duties behind the wheel on long trips while I pounded out a post to keep my blog quota streak going. Not to mention driving me around birding hotspots while I hung my head out the window listening for bird calls or worse, subjecting herself to embarrassment while I pulled out my camera phone to capture something that made me laugh (happens a lot more that I am willing to admit). I need to do a better job in 2019 of making it up to her.

It is shaping up to be another big year at Intrigued. There are new goals for running, new target birds and hopefully a number of trips to keep the hopper full. Planning to make 2019 even better than 2018.

Thank You!

And now, the annual stats for the year’s worth of blogging.

Hit the jump to see the 2018 stats!

• According to the WordPress Stats: Total Posts 931 and 3,015 comments (across both blogs – there is overlap)
• According to the WordPress Stats: 2018 Total Posts 101 (up from 91 last year) and 278 comments (way up from last year’s 192)
• Total blog pages this year (according to MS Word): 675 (up from my previous year’s output of 637)
• Total number of words this year (according to MS Word): 102,934 (think this may be a new record for me – last year was 92,085) – maybe this is why my fingers hurt all the time ha!
• Post topics (some posts had multiple categories) 2018 / Total
  • Birds: 61 / 366 (up from 53 last year yeah!)
  • Fail: 0 / 5 (six years in a row – time to get some of these out there)
  • General: 0 / 53
  • Insects: 0 / 21 – already started addressing this in 2019
  • Observation: 78 / 714
  • Phoadtography: 0 / 16 (ugh)
  • Products: 0 / 21 (double ugh)
  • Projects: 4 / 65 (Need to get some more of the Halloween projects out there)
  • Ramblings: 0 / 11 (probably good for you)
  • Recollection: 22/ 99 / 121 (way up from 15 from last year)
  • Service: 0 / 53
  • Wildlife: 68 / 467 (way up from last – obviously the big focus for this year!)
  • WIT: 0 / 2
• Blogs this year by month
  • Jan: 16 (holy cow, the gods must be crazy – actually this was mostly in prep for the Audubon talk
  • Feb: 10 (woot)
  • Mar: 8
  • Apr: 7
  • May: 7
  • Jun: 7
  • Jul: 6
  • Aug: 6
  • Sep: 6
  • Oct: 7
  • Nov: 8
  • Dec: 13 (double woot)
• Comments this year by month (from wildlife stats) (comments / likes)
  • Jan: 18 / 42
  • Feb: 22 / 45 (they like me, they really really do)
  • Mar: 25 / 34
  • Apr: 31 / 39
  • May: 28 / 30
  • Jun: 22 / 22
  • Jul: 32 / 13
  • Aug: 25 / 27
  • Sep: 24 / 20
  • Oct: 6 / 18 (dropped off a bit here)
  • Nov: 18 / 36
  • Dec: 27 / 40
• Posts with Most Comments and Likes
  • Flying Zebras– 8+8
  • Totem Spirit – 8+8
• Number of images used:
  • Birds – 385 (a huge boost from last year’s 280)
  • Other Wildlife Photos – 49 (also up from last year)
  • Other Photos – 244 (actually down from last year, probably suffered from the emphasis on birds this year)
  • Custom Graphics – 1
  • TOTAL: 679 (up from last year’s 650 and a new record for me)
• Completed Life List Items:
  • Added trail running to my race schedule completing and placing in 3 1/2 marathons in the woods
  • New record 7 half marathons this year (4 standard, 3 trail) plus two 5Ks as doubles to halfs, a 15k and a 7 miler (the last being the Bix for my 16th year in a row).
  • Once again exceeded the 1,000 mile running goal – actually made it over 1,100 for the year.
  • Finally finished off the last element on my marathon life list entry allowing me to officially cross that off this year (note, with that done, I was finally able to add the 50K to my goals this year)
  • Gave two presentations on birding and blogging (Local Audubon Chapter and Peoria Camera Club) (received nice comments from both of those efforts)
  • Blogging for the 11th year successfully hitting my self-imposed 6 post/month quota – actually rocked it last year!
• As predicted in the 2017 Summary, 2018 was an incredible year for my birding list. Thanks to the bird talks, my count went from 187 to 235 a whopping gain of 48. The wildlife blog benefited tremendously since each of those 48 represented a post in order to get an official tick on my list.

That’s a wrap, have a great New Year everyone!… 2018 is officially in the books