Monthly Review: January 2016

Jan2016

Reinstating the monthly reviews…

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Technically the last monthly review report was for the combined period July & August 2015. I make this case because the post at the start of January reviewed the whole of 2015. Apologies for also releasing this half a month late – I did have an original intention of writing this up and publishing it according to the traditional first day of the month but given I was consumed with all the preparation for going to Cambodia this was one of the lesser important things. Thus, even though this post is back-dated to 1 February, it was written up and published 24 February instead.

Jan2016PostingActivity

January 2016 saw a renewal in my posting activity. The image on the left provides a great visual summary of the posting frequency. Overall, with 18 new posts I was more or less posting every other day. The last half of January has a short period of three days in a row of continuous posting. The record for continuous/consecutive days of posting is four days – 12 to 15 June 2015. Four posts were published in quick succession – Being an Apple Beta, Brickvention 2016, website upgrade and finally my Australian Open 2016 prediction. Three of the posts were time sensitive and the first was also in response to a live topic being discussed in family/friend circles at the time. Just those four posts demonstrate the diversity of topics covered here at XBOP.

I have learnt over the last 2-3 years that I need to develop a sustainable publishing cycle. For various periods, I have maintained my discipline for varying lengths of time. Currently I am managing to keep on top of a fairly aggressive every-other-day publishing cycle, implemented to serve the purposes of my journal blogging for the Samaritan’s Purse Cambodia Discovery Trip. January 2016 has also seen the launch of a new writing serial on Public Transport – this was timed to leverage the Burke Rd Level Crossing removal, which, when coupled with my links to the RailPage community forum, created the boost in traffic for the month.

January was quite an eventful month – coming off the back of my December/Christmas holiday. With the summer season in full force, I have spent time enjoying all that Melbourne has to offer. One of the interesting developments was the reprioritisation away from the Australian Open tennis, given the bigger focus in preparing for my mission/Discovery trip to Cambodia.

The plan for February and future content is to blog my eight-day experience cruising the South Pacific to New Caledonia over Christmas 2015. Public transport commentary will no doubt feature, particularly given the greater attention it receives nowadays in the local Melbourne news. A quick check of the writing serials page also suggests I need to tie up a few loose ends from 2015 work – specifically the Memory Verses and Worship topics…