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Susan, the girls and myself are spending New Year’s Eve in Boston this year. It’s not same as visiting Scott in New York last year, but we’re having a great time no less.
I’m not much of a New Year’s resolution kind of guy. If something is a good idea to do, why wait until the end of the year or January 1st to start doing it. Start when you’re ready regardless if it’s January, February, September – it’s all the same with no time better than the present. Having stated this, the end of the year is a good time to reflect on the past year and what’s going on ahead in the next year.
Looking back 2016 was the year I started writing this blog. I actually started researching it in the fall of 2015, and had procured the domain and internet workings by January 1st, 2016, and didn’t actually start posting until the end of March. It’s when I was ready. I started the blog as an outlet for my travel hobby as I really enjoy going places, especially in cost controlled comfort. Having some ideas on the hobby, locations, and industry, this medium gives me a chance to share those experiences.
One of my biggest surprises has been the amount of work needed to write a trip report. Good grief it takes real time and effort. My goal when I started this year was to document all my airline travel, hotel stays and then other ideas and experiences that I wanted. If I took similar trips, say a Southwest shorthaul flight, then I didn’t feel the need to document the other Southwest shorthaul trips. So far I’ve written up 65% of my documented trips from 2016 and want to finish all of them by my original past date, March 27th (of 2017). I actually though I would be done by December 31st, but that’s not going to happen. I was able to publish 103 posts, which I feel good about.
Copley Square Boston New Year’s Eve 2016
In addition to writing up all my travel experiences, I wanted to average a post a day. My experiences from the last year have taught me that it’s just not possible to hold down a full time career, have a family, and be a prolific blogger or even semi-prolific blogger. For me anyway it’s too much. After I finish out my travel posts from 2016, I’m going to be more selective about which trips reports I write about in 2017. I’m also going to try and specialize my 2017 industry posts to a specific topic (or two), in order to make the whole thing more manageable. I’ll share more of my ideas on this later; as Susan and the girls are on me to get out and see the fireworks tonight.
In the meantime enjoy your New Year Eve! – Jimmy Gottfredson
