I am long overdue for this type of post but I have reached quite a milestone with 2300 followers and counting. I appreciate all my followers and those of you that have shown me support since the beginning when I joined back in August last year.

THANK YOU ALL! YOU'RE THE BEST!!!
There have been a lot of ups and downs and when I look back, it was great learning experience. I look forward to another year on Steem and to meet more wonderful people.
Taking a Look Back
My main focus on my blog post has been to help educate new users to learn about Steem and various other topics to help with the overall growth of this platform. I have enjoyed the feedback and comments I have received and makes it all worth it.
Early Attempt

I attempted to run a project known as @voteinterestpool. It was to help users to get recognized and earn some extra rewards. It also distributed rewards to voters and had it running as a witness too but that project didn't last very long. There was an issue the community had with this type of model of a project similar to how @steemsports had their model in the past so I decided to shut it down in the better interest of the community.
Running a Witness

After the VIP project, I decided to run a witness myself.
https://steemit.com/witness-category/@bitcoinparadise/witness-applicatoin
I was a total noob with all this stuff but I wanted to learn more of the Steem blockchain and boy did I learn a lot. There are still tons more I need to learn but it was a great experience. I got to help new witnesses at the time and now, I am sure they know will be the ones helping me If I decide to run a witness again. I ran my witness for a few months but also decided to shut it down due to personal reasons, politics, and the fact that I didn't have the time to maintain being a witness since a real witness does not only run a node, but also campaigns and contributes to the community with development and/or user growth.
Communities & Projects

Then I went on to put my focus on helping communities and users with the time I had. It has been a slow but steady journey. I enjoy meeting my followers and the new people that join Steem.
I am mainly in @steemspeak but also but also been fortunate to work with Steemit101, @ftgu, @steemtrail, and other wonderful communities.

I have been an active curator for the @crypto-trail as of lately and it's been going well. Since I am curating the trail by myself, there are only so many posts I can read through and new curators are welcome to join. Feel free to share some posts that are crypto related in the #crypto-trail channel on the SteemTrail Discord server.
I have been working a lot behind the scenes on a couple projects and there is one in particular that I have been working on for a while and hope to release it soon.
Once again. thank you so much to my followers for your support. I wouldn't have made it this far on Steem without you!!!
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