Happy New Year!
Please, oh please let this be a better year for us all. I'm unsure if that means I hope we all get abducted by aliens who only want to serve man (not as an entree), but I still hope it's better than 2011.
And for all of you worried about the Mayan prophecy of the end of the world in 2012 - if you aren't Mayan, don't worry about it. Besides... it's not the end of the world prophecy... it's when the Destroyer comes back to Earth. People just assume it means death and destruction. But nope... he just comes back to sit in judgement on the living.
For Japan... the year 2011 was horrific. A 9.0 Magnitude earthquake, a tsunami, near meltdowns of a nuclear reactor facility, crappy economy, loss of jobs, livelihoods, life. But... while I did write about that, I know I also tried to show how Japan has persevered... its people looking towards the future.
Personally... 2011 can kiss my ass. Last year at this time I wrote how 2010 was the worst year of my life. Somehow, 2011 managed to beat 2010 into submission making it even suckier for myself. Along with more family-crap than I thought possible, my day-job magazine was sold, we had to move to a new company and new facility and then two months later the new company moved again. While I still had a job, my daily commute more than doubled to 90 minutes each way, and now meant I had to purchase a second car... which now only meant a 60-minute each way commute (up from 40 minutes). Great. More expenses (gas, parking and insurance, car maintenance.) As well, with my wife now doing night school and me now taking longer to get home, my son now has to be driven to my workplace, and then I have to drive him home, get him to eat, do his homework and then to bed within a two-hour window. I know it's no fun for him.
However, I will admit that recently, things have picked up quite a bit, making me quite optimistic for 2012. It's kind of like my life in Japan. It's up - it's down - it's up. I still managed to have a wonderful rife, and I'm hoping that aspect will continue in 2012.
The past year - 2011 - it was quite a good year for this blog, Japan - It's A Wonderful Rife. For that, I have you loyal readers to thank - especially: Caroline, Mike, Peter, Jimbo, Rob, Kristine (yes... that Kristine!) and Matthew (yes... that Matthew!) who have offered words of encouragement, praise, advice, friendship and love.
This blog started 2011 off with 707 hits, and me stopping writing for nearly a month to handle (?) some personal matters. February had 1,419 hits. March - when the earthquake and tsunami rocked Japan - we had 3,174 hits, as I began posting more than once a day. April saw 5,817 hits. I thought to myself - oh man, if I can just keep this up, I will be happy.
May saw 6,026 hits and I was happy. June offered 5,605 and I was satisfied. Sort off. In July, things got even better with 8,947 hits. In August I had 9,851 hits and then I thought - holy crap, if I could just break 10,000 hits, I will be happy.
September - this was an aberration. Thanks to some lucky naming of a blog - Miss Universe - and the upcoming Miss Universe 2011 event, this blog had 20,292 hits. And... I was happy. But I was also quite sad because I knew there was no way in hell October could ever reach those heights - unless I found the next big thing to attract attention on the Internet. With a dip to 11,431 hits, I obviously did not find the next great thing on the Net. Not hitting 20,000 hits sucked, and despite my second highest hit total yet, I was not satisfied.
November brought about 9,256 hits. Man... I was going in the wrong direction. This sucks! If I could only get back to 10,000 hits, I would be happy.
And so, as I write this, the month of December has brought in 15,494 hits. Apparently all I have to do is write three articles a day. This is on top of the writing I do for work, where I write a fair number of articles for a monthly industrial magazine. This makes me happy... sort of.
It means I get to do more writing - which I love - but within the same amount of time I was previously only writing one or two stories a day. Oh well... who needs lunch or sleep?
For 2012... my goal is simply to write a blog every day and when we are done, to have published at least twice as many blogs as there are days in the year. The implication being that there may indeed be days when I can only write one article here and others when I can do three or more.... especially if I cheap out and write a Godzilla haiku for you. Those things take less than a minute. Really... 47 seconds or less. However, what slows down my creative process is NOT coming up with a topic, but rather my inability to type. Really... I do about 45 mistakes a minute.
Anyhow, as I'm sure the country of Japan might attest, last year sucked. But, since we are all here right now, it could have been a whole lot worse, if you know what I mean.
Forget old friends? Never! Despite me not seeing two of my best friends this year (Kevin and Nigel), they were always in my thoughts.
Think about new friends? Yup. Here's to new beginnings.
Happy 2012 everyone. 2011 can really kiss my ass.
Andrew Joseph
Please, oh please let this be a better year for us all. I'm unsure if that means I hope we all get abducted by aliens who only want to serve man (not as an entree), but I still hope it's better than 2011.
And for all of you worried about the Mayan prophecy of the end of the world in 2012 - if you aren't Mayan, don't worry about it. Besides... it's not the end of the world prophecy... it's when the Destroyer comes back to Earth. People just assume it means death and destruction. But nope... he just comes back to sit in judgement on the living.
For Japan... the year 2011 was horrific. A 9.0 Magnitude earthquake, a tsunami, near meltdowns of a nuclear reactor facility, crappy economy, loss of jobs, livelihoods, life. But... while I did write about that, I know I also tried to show how Japan has persevered... its people looking towards the future.
Personally... 2011 can kiss my ass. Last year at this time I wrote how 2010 was the worst year of my life. Somehow, 2011 managed to beat 2010 into submission making it even suckier for myself. Along with more family-crap than I thought possible, my day-job magazine was sold, we had to move to a new company and new facility and then two months later the new company moved again. While I still had a job, my daily commute more than doubled to 90 minutes each way, and now meant I had to purchase a second car... which now only meant a 60-minute each way commute (up from 40 minutes). Great. More expenses (gas, parking and insurance, car maintenance.) As well, with my wife now doing night school and me now taking longer to get home, my son now has to be driven to my workplace, and then I have to drive him home, get him to eat, do his homework and then to bed within a two-hour window. I know it's no fun for him.
However, I will admit that recently, things have picked up quite a bit, making me quite optimistic for 2012. It's kind of like my life in Japan. It's up - it's down - it's up. I still managed to have a wonderful rife, and I'm hoping that aspect will continue in 2012.
The past year - 2011 - it was quite a good year for this blog, Japan - It's A Wonderful Rife. For that, I have you loyal readers to thank - especially: Caroline, Mike, Peter, Jimbo, Rob, Kristine (yes... that Kristine!) and Matthew (yes... that Matthew!) who have offered words of encouragement, praise, advice, friendship and love.
This blog started 2011 off with 707 hits, and me stopping writing for nearly a month to handle (?) some personal matters. February had 1,419 hits. March - when the earthquake and tsunami rocked Japan - we had 3,174 hits, as I began posting more than once a day. April saw 5,817 hits. I thought to myself - oh man, if I can just keep this up, I will be happy.
May saw 6,026 hits and I was happy. June offered 5,605 and I was satisfied. Sort off. In July, things got even better with 8,947 hits. In August I had 9,851 hits and then I thought - holy crap, if I could just break 10,000 hits, I will be happy.
September - this was an aberration. Thanks to some lucky naming of a blog - Miss Universe - and the upcoming Miss Universe 2011 event, this blog had 20,292 hits. And... I was happy. But I was also quite sad because I knew there was no way in hell October could ever reach those heights - unless I found the next big thing to attract attention on the Internet. With a dip to 11,431 hits, I obviously did not find the next great thing on the Net. Not hitting 20,000 hits sucked, and despite my second highest hit total yet, I was not satisfied.
November brought about 9,256 hits. Man... I was going in the wrong direction. This sucks! If I could only get back to 10,000 hits, I would be happy.
And so, as I write this, the month of December has brought in 15,494 hits. Apparently all I have to do is write three articles a day. This is on top of the writing I do for work, where I write a fair number of articles for a monthly industrial magazine. This makes me happy... sort of.
It means I get to do more writing - which I love - but within the same amount of time I was previously only writing one or two stories a day. Oh well... who needs lunch or sleep?
For 2012... my goal is simply to write a blog every day and when we are done, to have published at least twice as many blogs as there are days in the year. The implication being that there may indeed be days when I can only write one article here and others when I can do three or more.... especially if I cheap out and write a Godzilla haiku for you. Those things take less than a minute. Really... 47 seconds or less. However, what slows down my creative process is NOT coming up with a topic, but rather my inability to type. Really... I do about 45 mistakes a minute.
Anyhow, as I'm sure the country of Japan might attest, last year sucked. But, since we are all here right now, it could have been a whole lot worse, if you know what I mean.
Forget old friends? Never! Despite me not seeing two of my best friends this year (Kevin and Nigel), they were always in my thoughts.
Think about new friends? Yup. Here's to new beginnings.
Happy 2012 everyone. 2011 can really kiss my ass.
Andrew Joseph
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