Today I am celebrating my one year anniversary on the Steem blockchain! Exactly one year ago yesterday, I decided to "jump in" and establish an online profile here. Prior to making that decision, it was a step I had said would never happen.

That is, I am not now or ever have been on Facebook, Twitter, ?...? and still maintain that I almost certainly never will be.

Since posting my introduction on 14 May 2018, though, it has been an absolutely wonderful experience "in here." I would never have imagined my "journey" through the Steemisphere would involve engaging with others all over the world and what that experience has meant to me.

_{Crafted on top of Background photo created by rawpixel.com - www.freepik.com}

What I am going to do to mark this occasion is put together a complete picture of what this year has looked like, from the point-of-view of my posting. This post will serve as a key reference for me, from now on. And it will always mean a great deal to me, given what it represents.

"Body of Work" or Value Added by @roleerob

So ... With the primary focus of this post being to create a reference to all of the work I have put in over this past year, it will highlight the value I have added to our Steem blockchain. What follows then are the 95 posts I have created, broken into their logical groupings.

Compared to prolific content creators like @tarazkp, who a short time ago celebrated the creation of 22,222 posts 😧, one could reasonably ask "why bother?" 🤔

• Note: Of some small consolation, if I was inclined to feel depressed (I'm not ...) about this small number, many of my posts could easily have been broken up into a number of others, e.g. my two "Welcome to the Steemisphere" posts which total over 11,000 words ...

Well, how about this? Having never been online prior to "jumping in" to the Steem blockchain, my original objective was to put out a post once a week. I produced almost double that? 😉 And, some early exchanges with @abh12345 helped me better understand the importance of engagement, so I am happy to report I have written 2,196 comments (~ 96% of what I have written "in here"), in support of my fellow Steemians, over this same period of time. 👍

Getting to it then, as you scroll down through these, dear reader, perhaps something of interest will stand out that you may wish to read / reread.

• Note: You can click the image, as well as the hyperlink, to jump to any post of interest to you.

________________________

In the beginning ...

We all have to start somewhere. Right? Looking back on these, I am still happy with the content. But they also clearly show (to me) how much I had to learn, in the first few weeks.

Setting out on this "new adventure," they were intentionally written with a desire that they serve as a foundation for future posts I would be writing. That is, I wanted to have them to refer back to, as needed.

Post: Lead Image	Post: Title, Creation Date, and Brief Intro
	Intro to Steemian Community: Passionate Proponent of Truth, Life, & Liberty - 14 May 2018 * * * * Reading through the Steemit FAQ section and related posts, I learned the recommended way to get started was with an introductory post. Here it is, my first post, with a little bit of everything! 😉
	Testimony of a "Rock Head" - 20 May 2018 * * * * It was very important to me, as a disciple of Jesus Christ, to make my testimony my second post. Hopefully, to serve as some encouragement to anyone who has a background - a "story" - like mine.
	Liberty: Land of the Free, Home of the Brave - 28 May 2018 * * * * As an American, proud of our heritage, I wrote this post about what we all hold so dear - our freedom! Even better liberty!! In this post, I explain why I believe that, while honoring a great man on Memorial Day in America.
	Essential Foundation for Good Business - 3 Jun 2018 * * * * Having spent all of my professional life, in one way or another, in the business world, I have a lot of experience about what constitutes good business. And, I am very passionate about it!
	Progress Update: Reputation 40! - 16 Jun 2018 * * * * While still very early in "getting my feet wet," with all involved in engaging on the Steem blockchain, I was beginning to realize the importance of our "rep." So ... I decided to write a post about reputation, having achieved this first milestone.
	Father's Day 2018: Children - Blessings of Life!! - 17 Jun 2018 * * * * Very little is more important to me than children. So, on Father's Day I decided to write an important post about what they represent.

________________________

Observations and Reflections

In routinely thinking about what I should write about next, my mind often went to philosophical themes, given all my experience in life on many levels. I probably enjoy writing these posts more than any other type.

Post: Lead Image	Post: Title, Creation Date, and Brief Intro
	Focus of our Time - 24 Jun 2018 * * * * As an older man, I have learned the hard way (like most of my life lessons) the value of our time. Is there anything more valuable? I wrote about that in this post.
	Observations: Words Matter - 27 Jun 2018 * * * * High on the list of important things in life are the words we choose to let cross our lips. I wrote a post about essential aspects of our communication with others - "common" (not really!) courtesy, civility, and respect.
	Prosperity: Freedom and Opportunity for Ordinary People - 4 Jul 2018 * * * * Freedom and opportunity are vital to our sense of well-being. Inspired in August 2017 by what my research had led me to understand about the potential of blockchain technology, I wrote a post about what it represents for ordinary people - like you and me.
	Observations: Gratitude and the Simple Things - 6 Jul 2018 * * * * Inspired by a quiet morning of reflection in my yard, I wrote a post about gratitude. And the importance of being content with the simple things in life.
	Observations: Two Lanes into One and the Human Condition - 9 Jul 2018 * * * * "Inspired" (maybe enraged is a little closer ... 😏) by a particularly unpleasant trip home from work, I wrote about it and what some refer to as "the human condition."
	Reflections: Curation and Pollination - 11 Jul 2018 * * * * After some wonderful early "encounters" with several people in the PIFC community, I was inspired to write this post. It got some very good reviews.
	Reflections: My Life as a Hay Farmer - 3 Sep 2018 * * * * As support for the "law of sowing and reaping" section of my 2nd post on adding value to the Steem blockchain, wrote from the heart about an important experience with my children. Won my first Curie award, making it the highest payout post I had written!
	Reflections: Family and Hurricane Florence - 19 Sep 2018 * * * * In the midst of the national crisis, wrote this post about a member of my family's involvement in it. Also paid tribute to the linemen who work heroically to restore power as the first order of business in times like these.
	Reflections: Innocent until Proven Guilty! - 30 Sep 2018 * * * * At the height of a major political drama, was inspired to write this post about essential components of the American justice system - due process of law and the burden of proof.
	Survival Tale: My Battle with Intestinal Infection - 4 Oct 2018 * * * * Upon learning fellow @helpie Steemmate @daan was in the hospital with a serious intestinal problem, was inspired to write this post about my own experience with surviving the worst illness I have been through as an adult.
	Reflections on the Future: BBC 2018 Conference in San Antonio, Texas - 12 Nov 2018 * * * * Blessed to again participate in this remarkable world conference, I wrote about the experience and "the future of business" based on the presentations from some of the "best and brightest" in the world.
	Reflections: My "Road to Recovery" Trip - 1 Dec 2018 * * * * "Plan your work and work your plan!" In this post, I wrote about the beginning of my "road to recovery" (R2R) trip - the outline of my plans and, more importantly, why ...
	Reflections: Officially retired ... Or am I? - 18 Jan 2019 * * * * Writing about my official retirement, I said this - "I am determined to do whatever it takes to recover my sense of vitality. My health and overall sense of well-being is my number one priority at this stage of my life. Yes, I am getting older. No, I am not dead yet ..."
	Reflections: Information "tsunami!" And ... No end in sight ... - 29 Mar 2019 * * * * Wrote a post reflecting back over my long professional life and entering the Information Age, with the overwhelming (and growing!) amount of "information at our fingertips." And the challenges of working with the systems designed to process it.

________________________

Good Business

Knowing from experience that I seem to have a much stronger sense of justice than most, I place a very high value on supporting good businesses. As an application of the "golden rule," I think is important to make it known, when you have had a great experience. It doesn't get any better than "word of mouth" advertising, from someone whose judgment you trust.

Post: Lead Image	Post: Title, Creation Date, and Brief Intro
	Business Review: Great Maker of Backlit LED Pictures - 7 Jun 2018 * * * * The story of my "office window" linked to a very important time in my life is told in this post. The owner afterwards said he was in tears, after reading it.
	BBC 2017: Lifetime Memories from IIBA's Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida - 15 Jun 2018 * * * * A highlight of my professional career was attending this truly international conference of Business Analysts from all over the world.
	Business Review: Great Creator of GIF Images - @skyleap! - 30 Jun 2018 * * * * As a great example of what the Steem blockchain can be, this post tells the story of my business experience with one of our fellow Steemians. From the other side of the world in Japan!
	Celebrating Good Business: 👌 Latest from Ledger! 👍 - 22 Mar 2019 * * * * Not all great business reviews are based on good news. Here is one example of how a great business handled some pretty bad news.
	Celebrating Good Business! 😧 Binance Hacked ... Successfully! 😞 - 8 May 2019 * * * * Just as with the post above, here is another example of how a great business handled some really bad news.

________________________

Monthly Highlights and Updates

For most of my professional life, I have been required to generate a monthly report. Carrying that experience "in here," I have written monthly highlight posts almost every month. As well as some quick updates, when a pressing schedule kept me from being able to post on the Steem blockchain for an extended period.

Regular features are my "Executive Summary," "Awards and Accomplishments," and "Monthly Highlights" broken out into 👍👍, 👍, 👎, and 👎👎 sections.

Post: Lead Image	Post: Title, Creation Date, and Brief Intro
	Update, Month 1: Engaged with a 4-Figure Stake in the Future - 9 Jun 2018 * * * * Impressed enough with my initial experience on the Steem blockchain, a highlight of my first post was my decision to invest in it further and create a 4-figure stake.
	Update, Month 2: Still Engaged with an Increased Stake and "Growing" ... - 15 Jul 2018 * * * * In my second month, I really began to wrestle with the whole idea of what constituted truly adding value to the Steem blockchain.
	Update, Month 3: Still (Somewhat) Engaged with an Increased Stake and "Recalibrating" ... - 2 Sep 2018 * * * * As much as I was fascinated by my experience, the time commitment led to me write about "recalibrating."
	Update, Month 5: Still Engaged with an Increased Stake and "Doubling Down" ... - 3 Nov 2018 * * * * Having missed a month, due to the effort required on my "Steemisphere" posts, I wrote about "doubling down" and investing, instead of selling out ...
	Update, Month 6: "Fully" Engaged with Increased Stake and "Resolute" ... - 7 Dec 2018 * * * * In facing the steep decline in STEEM pricing and 70% layoff at SteemIt, I wrote about remaining "resolute" in the face of adversity.
	Update, Month7: 🐬 Starting 2019 as a Dolphin! 🐬 - 20 Jan 2019 * * * * Freshly retired and just before leaving on my R2R "trip of a lifetime," I wrote this post about starting into the New Year as a dolphin!
	Update, Month 9: Safely Home and "Working" on the "Next Chapter" - 3 Mar 2019 * * * * Safely back home from my R2R trip, I wrote about facing "the next chapter" of my life and the decisions to be made.
	Update, 2019 Mar 20: ❌ What's Up with @roleerob ❓ - 20 Mar 2019 * * * * After an extended period of "posting silence," I wrote an update about what I was doing, to dispel "rumors of my death" ... 😏
	Update, Month 10: 🥛 Glass Half Full? Or Half Empty 🥛 - 1 Apr 2019 * * * * Refusing to turn a "blind eye" to some of its aspects, I wrote about the pluses and minuses of remaining involved on the Steem blockchain.
	Update, 2019 Apr 18: ❓ What's Up @roleerob ❓ - 18 Apr 2019 * * * * After another extended period of "posting silence," I again wrote an update about what I was doing, to dispel "rumors of my death" ... 😏
	Update, Month11: Bogged down "out there" ... - 1 May 2019 * * * * Having filed for an extension to get my taxes done, for the first time ever, 😧 I wrote about why - for the first time, fully accounting for my "digital asset" class investments ... 😞

________________________

Steem Blockchain

The Steem blockchain is complicated! Starting out as an investor only, the main reason for my choosing to "jumping in" was to do my small part to increase the user base - one of the keys to the long-term profitability of the new "digital asset" class. I really started out with very little idea of what I was doing.

As I developed a deeper understanding of and appreciation for all that was involved, I began to write about it.

As an example, in my encouragement post, writing about the single biggest payout I had received, I wrote about what I referred to as “the Challenge.” After “Chapter One” of my journey “in here” was over, I decided to do something about it. This is what I wrote …

”You are reading what I would like to have been quickly introduced to, when I was where you are right now.”

My hope is that some of these posts will help lessen how steep the "learning curve" is a bit for those who decide to start their own Steem "journey."

Post: Lead Image	Post: Title, Creation Date, and Brief Intro
	Reflections: Adding "Value" to the Steem Blockchain - Chapter 1 - 8 Jul 2018 * * * * After a particularly insightful exchange I had with PAL/MSP moderator @discordiant, wrote this post on present and future value.
	Reflections: Adding "Value" to our Steem Blockchain - Chapter 2 - 3 Sep 2018 * * * * Not coincidentally, on Labor Day I wrote this post about an essential part of Steem blockchain success - work! And "earned" vs. "entitled" ... As support for the "law of sowing and reaping" section of this post, I wrote from the heart about an important experience with my children - in my Reflections: My Life as a Hay Farmer post. It won my first Curie award, making it the highest payout post I had written!
	True Story: Encouragement on our Steem Blockchain - 8 Sep 2018 * * * * With all that happened in winning my first Curie award, wrote one of my most important posts about the whole experience.
	Steem and the Adventures of @TrufflePig!! - 19 Sep 2018 * * * * In honoring the work of my "bot buddy," I wrote a post about this amazing AI creation of our fellow Steemian @smcaterpillar.
	User's Guide to the Steemisphere, Version 1.0 - 27 Oct 2018 * * * * Inspired to do what I could to spare new Steemians from all I had been through "the hard way" wrote two complimentary posts. This one and the one below. I consider them to be my single biggest contributions to the Steem blockchain.
	Welcome to the Steemisphere! Getting Off to a "Flying Start," Version 1.0 - 28 Oct 2018 * * * * Inspired to do what I could to spare new Steemians from all I had been through "the hard way" wrote two complimentary posts. This one and the one above. I consider them to be my single biggest contributions to the Steem blockchain.
	Starting the New Year as a Dolphin! - 31 Dec 2018 * * * * With the crushing losses of the 4th quarter of 2018, decided to make "lemonade out of lemons" and buy myself a dolphin-sized stake on the Steem blockchain. In this post, I wrote about it, including a complete transaction history.
	Human Nature and "Adventures" in the Steemisphere - 19 Jan 2019 * * * * Getting the New Year off to a "flying start" (yeah, right ... 😏), I wrote this post about my great unhappiness upon learning of @ned's decision to power down and move his stake to Bittrex.

Closing, Part 1 ...

As you will note in the details below, dear reader, I have been given no choice
but to break this post into two parts.

Part 2 can be found here!

Posted using SteemPeak and "immutably enshrined in the blockchain" on Wednesday, 15 May 2019!

________________________

• Tech Note 1: At a glance, my readers will appreciate it was no small feat to put this post together. A major time drain was once again facing the serious limitations of SteemIt's "locked down" version of HTML. I wonder if I will be around long enough to see this change? I sure hope so - sooner rather than later would be good!
  
  

• Tech Note 2: Oh great, I "broke" the Steem interface ... SteemPeak failed repeatedly to post, saying "Try again later" and I finally ran out of patience and pasted the content into SteemIt. Only to get the message below. Wow! So ... Have to break this post into two parts, as there is no way to "condense" it ...

• Tech Note 3: Given the amount of content in these two posts, what is the RC cost for publishing it all?

SteemPeak: An awesome interface for our Steem blockchain.

Check it out!

_{This account is protected by @dustsweeper}