FRIENDS … ONE AND ALL

Friends … one and all,

Thanks, merci, gracias, danke, grazie, köszönöm, spasibo, tack, takk, terima kasih, arigato!  My sincere gratitude goes out to all my friends around the world for your Comments, Follows, Shares, Likes and Views on my first six monthly installments of Mike’s Quadrant.  Your genuine interest and collective positive feedback is the fuel I was hoping for and the incentive needed to continue to share my life’s story past, present and future.  For the past 53 years I've been bold enough to try and discover new roads regardless of wherever they may lead, whatever obstacles I may encounter and what I’ll learn at the end of each and every journey, short or long.

Here I'm in "Full Rant" mode last February!

Upon entering the Blogger-sphere last January I inherently sensed it would not be easy.  It has been incredibly taxing and even at times overwhelming on my physical, intellectual, emotional and creative juices in order to generate my monthly content and meet the deliverables.  My hat goes off to those many “true” writers around the world who are tasked with monthly, weekly and often daily deadlines to get their messages out to the world by traditional and new social media platforms.  Personally, I've always been a writer at heart but have chosen to be very discriminating and selective about what, when, where and to whom I share my inner thoughts. 

Hence, Mike’s Quadrant was somewhat of a social experiment to explore this new digital platform while monitoring the overall response and feedback.  While the numbers of supporters are significant I think that only a quantitative review of my blog only tells a part of what you (my friends and readers) reflect back to me.  Looking at all the feedback through a qualitative lens I believe is much more telling as I loved to hear back from those of you who truly took the time to read and view the various installments in their entirety as opposed to those who took a quick glance and didn't offer any feedback at all.  I think this is thereby the BIG unknown about new media because we are all bombarded with information through so many competing platforms vying for our attention that is virtually impossible to follow everything and “weed out” the good from the ordinary and then take valuable time to share your thoughts with me.

For those of you who have been loyal and dedicated readers of Mike’s Quadrant you’ll recall that I've posted 6 installments respectively named: Let the Games Commence, The Olympian Within, The Right Stuff, ‘Round the World Challenge … Revisited, CTV Ottawa - Amazing People and now Friends … One and All. For the record, here is how the raw numbers stack up and I’ll leave it up to you my friends to make of them what you will. As of June 23^rd we have received 15,460 Views; 281 Likes, 105 Comments, 63 Shares and 21 Followers.  Perhaps, more important and revealing are the highly qualitative, supportive and complimentary responses which have been threaded throughout the following video segment accompanying my written blog.  In my opinion, many of these thought-provoking comments are the testimony to what the stories really meant to some of my readers and how some of my subject matters truly hit home and resonated.                                              

Here I'm flying in an open cockpit 1941 Stamp .... vintage WWII 

Please note that we will be taking a hiatus in July and will not be posting an installment that month. However, stay tuned for my next Quadrant which will resume and be posted at the end of August.  Keep us on your radar as we will be shifting gears and poised to take on some highly interesting, innovative and controversial subject matters over the coming summer and fall seasons which will be sure to make you laugh and cry and ponder!  If you liked what you've read and watched, please follow me on Google in addition to sending me your comments, “likes” and sharing this story with your network of friends.  I hope to see you on the sunny side of the mountain!