New Year’s Resolutions

My first blog entry in 2012 was this:

My regular readers may have noticed that I have not been writing much in the last few days. This due to the fact that I now have a regular day job. My new job takes up most of my day so that I have little time left for my blog.

So my new year’s resolution is to post one post every other day. If I end the year 2012 with 170 or more  new posts I will consider my self successful.

I have ended 2012 with 162 blog entries, 8 short from my goal. But never the less it was a good year, because:

• On 4th April 2012 this blog received 4.311 views. An all time high.  The reason of this influx was Mrs. J.E. Dyer’s excellent blog post “How many old, belching Russian destroyers does it take to establish an international veto in Syria?” with a link to my blog post “Russian Destroyer Smetlivy Passed Through Bosphorus“
• On 30th July 2012 for the first time in my life I have seen and photographed Chinese warships, the destroyer Qingdao and the frigate Yantai. The photo of Yantai was reproduced in the October issue of  US. Naval Institute’s influential magazine Proceedings.
• On 30th August I had the privilege to visit the first Milgem class corvette F-511 TCG Heybeliada. It was a very different experience. Some off the photos I have taken that day are going to be published in the January 2013 issue of Warships IFR magazine.
• On 15th September this blog celebrated its 4th anniversary.
• On 19th September I was able to take the photos of the only submarine in Russian Black Sea Fleet Alrosa, as she was passing through the Bosphorus.

My plans for 2013 are simple: I will try to continue what I have been doing, as one of my readers so nicely wrote “You keep up with naval events that have not been covered in Western news media since the Soviet Union collapsed”; steady as she goes.

I wish you all a Happy 2013.