A year has come and gone

It has been a year since I posted the first entry on knightlynotes and even "half full" me ( in reference to my optimism) could not have guessed at the kind of impact it would have had. I had been writing freelance articles in Watt Now, the official publication for the SA institute of Electrical Engineers but I had opinions on many issues unrelated to engineering. Opinions on technology, movies, politics, society... to be honest, on just about anything. I had often thought of concentrating on just one genre or registering multiple blogs for the different topics but I knew that I would have never had the time to devote enough time to them. I actually expected to only have just enough time to possibly add one, maybe two entries a month. With 72 published posts in the last year, it would be fair to assume that that was an under-estimation!

Today, I would like to step back and review the year that passed with special mentions and updates on some of my favorite posts and the many doors that knightlynotes had inevitably opened.



One of my first articles on 'A day in Hatfield' actually remains my favorite. I had written the piece for no reason in particular and when relating my experiences to new friends I had just met at a wedding, I was asked, " Do you have a blog?". I did not, and I began wondering, why the hell don't I have my own blog? Within a week, I had registered a blog on blogger (www.theinfiniteimprobabilty.blogspot.com). I had chosen that name because I happened to be  reading the latest installment to the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy and I was finding it very difficult to come up with an original name that would suit me and my writing. It was actually my wife who had come up with the name Knightlynotes. The Knightly is because I Love Batman (not in the TinkyWinky kinda way) and because it would actually be a play on the word as I was in the habit of writing very late at night. It was more of a necessity rather than a habit as I had a full-time day job and could only write after my family had gone to bed. There were going to be spin off's. Parenting articles would have been written under the banner, 'In the Knight's Garden', and more humourous articles would have been written under, 'On a Knighter Note'.

Before long I was reviewing events and restaurants for www.durbanlive.co.za ( best durban burger, making sense in the silly season and, Time of the Writer - 2011). This was the perfect fit because

a) I loved to eat at new places
b) I loved to write, and
c) I was now being paid to do both of the above!


Co-incidentally this period of writing was concurrent with two major events in world history, The Arab Spring and The 'super-hero movie' Spring. What a great time to be a political analyst or a 'geek'. Since I am not a political analyst, many of my posts are on my thoughts/ reviews of current and upcoming super-hero movies ( X-Men: First Class or First Farce, Avengers Assemble) but I did my fair share of writing to ensure considerable difficulty in ever obtaining a visa to visit New York. On the topic of Super-hero movies. the first official teaser trailer for Avengers is viral. May seems too far away!

I did a series of posts on various cities I had visited in the Middle East (Damascus, Beirut, Petra, Jerusalem) and a few on my re-discovered hobby of building model cars. One article that was not very popular was one that I had written on Pi. It would I suppose, interest very few people but I like to think that it helped at least one child hand in a 'kick ass' maths project.

I suppose the biggest accomplishment came when I began writing for www.bandwidthblog.com. This is one of the premier computing/ tech sites in the country and it has a huge readership. It finally gave me, what I had always wanted, feedback from my readers. Admittedly, not all of this was good feedback, as I discovered that the Nazi Grammar Police was still alive and kicking in cyberspace but inter-acting with readers has been great. It also gave me, my first News24 Tech Cover Story (USB 3) but alas my next article ( Thunderbolt) was beaten to the top spot by a story on rescued baby squirrels!

Although the majority of my readers are from South Africa and the United States, it is always intriguing to know that of the 5 988 pageviews that I have had in the past year , that there were 28 pageviews from Latvia and 21 pageviews from the Ukraine. I only hope that this coming year brings with it the same level of accomplishment, and maybe a few more readers from Latvia!