Reflecting on 2015

This was a good year for "The Charbor Chronicles." Maybe it was not the year that I was most active in terms of the amount of blog entries. That would be last year, 2014, when I somehow managed to publish 1,115 posts, which more than doubled my total amount of posts up to that point. I knew that would be largely out of reach this year, and frankly, there was no real interest in trying to top that amount of blog entries. There was an attempt to focus instead on quality of blog entries, rather than quantity for 2015, and I think that this was more or less achieved, although there were undeniably some blog entries that felt rather mediocre, admittedly.

That said, despite not focusing on the numbers, I wound up publishing more blog entries this year than any year other than 2014, which means that it has to be considered a good, productive year, and that is a good feeling! This will be the 819th post on the year, and that is more - even far more - than was expected at the beginning of the year.

There were some landmarks, including having reached a total of 3,000 blog entries just days ago! Also, "The Charbor Chronicles" is fast approaching 200,000 views overall. That's one-fifth of one million views, and that is awesome! Considering that I am doing this entirely on my own, without pay, and that there is a minimum of promotion (mostly on my Facebook page), that makes me feel pretty good! I would like to use this opportunity to thank everyone who checks in and reads, and helped to make this happen.

Indeed, this was an active year. The highlight would be the trip to Arizona with my son, where we saw the Grand Canyon, the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert, a venture into Nogales, Mexico, and Tombstone, an old west town that was the focal point of more than one prominent western. Tombstone proved to be my son's very favorite highlight of the trip! I posted blog entries for each of these, documenting the trip on a day by day basis, back in August and stretching into September (the blog entries, not the trip).

Without question, that trip was the highlight of 2015 for me (and hopefully for my son as well). But there were other highlights, as well. Among these was seeing the Pope in Philadelphia with my son, and much more recently, seeing Star Wars with him, as well. I went to several book signings and author events as well, including Jimmy Carter, Ringo Starr, Jonathan Franzen, Buzz Aldrin, Salman Rushdie, and Joe Hill, among others. In most cases, I wrote reviews and incorporated pictures of these things.

So, I feel glad that 2015 felt like a more positive year overall than 2014, and I am excited and hopeful about 2016! I wish all of you a Happy New Year, and look forward to seeing each other on the other side...