The World According to Mitch

I want to thank you all, the great readers of The World According to Mitch.

2013 was a year of huge growth for my blog.  I spent the first few months with Microsoft, and so I was cross-posting all of my blogs from there to here (and vice-versa).  The last four months of the year were spent in Japan and Australia, with a lot of travel-related blogging that grabbed your attention.  Because of that, my readership ballooned to just over 181,000 views.

2014 was my annus horribilis.  It was simply a terrible year from the very outset.  Marital separation, unemployment, and depression are the three major themes from the first nine months of the year, and it is reflected in my blogging – my contributions to the site dropped to near zero for a few months.

Fortunately I am back on track; my marriage is not salvageable, but I am no longer unemployed and am much less depressed – or at least my depression is under control and I am managing it.  I have resumed my blogging with a passion, and am even ready to launch my new blog in early 2015.

I want to thank my readers for sticking with me.  As of today, December 24th, the stats are on track to just barely surpass those of 2013… although statistically I would consider it a tie with last year, and knowing what I went through I am more than happy to take it and run.

Thanks to you, I was once again listed on the 50 Must-Read IT Blogs as compiled by BitTech Magazine (see article).  I did my best to play catch-up, and hope that if this year’s appearance on the list was charitable, next year I will once again fully deserve your votes.

In the next few weeks I will have some big changes to announce, and I am looking forward to them.  I will be enjoying new challenges, and will be talking about a lot of technologies that I have not spent a lot of time on this year.  In the meantime I want to close the year by thanking you all, and sharing with you all, on Christmas Eve, a throwback to last year, my poem, A Modern Christmas Carol by Mitch.  Re-reading it reminded me of how much fun I had composing it, and how much I enjoyed my time in Japan.

Merry Christmas to all of you.

Mitch