Out With Old – In With The New

Image: Challenge: Always set the trail, never follow the path. (Image source: the Internet)
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So this is Christmas, and what have we done?
Another year over, and a new one just begun.
~ John Lennon (Happy Christmas/War Is Over)

Whew! That’s it, another year done and dusted, and a new year now underway. The saying, Time flies when you’re having fun, comes to mind here, and I have certainly had a lot of fun travelling and relaxing, writing and contemplating, and plotting and planning.

The traditional thing to do at this time of the year is to draw up a list of New Year’s Resolutions, most of which are quickly forgotten or lost along the way as life, work, and the daily grind keep plans and dreams on hold until at best, the following year or at worst, indefinitely.

I’m pleased to say I have pretty much left work and the daily grind behind, but then – have I? Maybe I have simply swapped paid work with the unpaid work – and some days it does feel like work – of writing for this blog. And even when it doesn’t feel like work, it is definitely unpaid. Not only that, but I am currently researching and planning to launch this blog as a website in its own right. I have already secured the rights to the domain name www.compleattraveller.com, and I am now trying to get my head around the whole process and logistics of setting up and maintaining a regular website.

Since I am still travelling, and will be for another couple of months, this process may be completed later rather than sooner, but when the transformation finally takes place the Compleat Traveller will have entered a new phase in its short life.

As the image illustrating this entry suggests, it is going to be a real challenge for me to make the transition from blog to website, but then what is life if not a constant series of challenges?

Supporting Wikipedia

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As anyone who has been reading the Compleat Traveller on a regular basis will know, I make extensive use of what I truly believe is the best online resource for researching the historical facts and information which I incorporate into my blog posts.

That resource is Wikipedia.

The fact that this resource is provided free to all is a great testament to the value of the internet in the 21st century. Millions of people around the world visit the Wikipedia site every day to research, browse, read, and just as importantly to add new content to the site.

Personally, I think my blog posts would be far less interesting without the addition of historical information to help put my musings and observations into some sort of context. Without the history, they would merely be the casual ramblings of a traveler passing through a city or landscape noting things of interest without understanding the history behind the construction of a particular building or monument, or why certain events happened when they did.

I enjoy the research, and I especially enjoy learning more about the many places I have visited or I am planning to visit. I also like the challenge of incorporating what I hope are some of the more interesting historical tidbits into my writing. In deed, there is rarely a day when I don’t check the Wikipedia site for information about any number of topics, and it’s an ever rarer day when I have come up short and not been able to find information on what I’ve been looking for.

Started in 2001, the main Wikipedia site is written in English, and currently contains over 3.5 million articles. However other language versions of Wikipedia are available and while they do not yet contain the same number of articles, they provide an incredible resource to non-English speaking users.

Wikipedia is hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization that also hosts a range of other projects. These include a free media repository (Commons); Wikinews, free-content news; Wiktionary, a Dictionary and thesaurus; Wikiquote, a collection of quotations; Wikibooks, a great resource of free textbooks and manuals, Wikisource, a free-content library; Wikispecies, a directory of species; and Wikiversity, which provides free learning materials and activities.

That’s why have I decided to add one more blog post to the final day of 2010. Because Wikipedia is wrapping up a fundraising drive aimed at raising $16 million to fund the ongoing work of the foundation behind the website, and having just made a AU$100 donation to the foundation, I thought I should bring the fundraising drive to your attention, dear reader.

If you too, have made use of Wikipedia during the year, or if you have enjoyed the historical background information I’ve used in my posts, I would encourage you to head on over to Wikipedia and make a donation of your own. It will be greatly appreciated.

Friday Photos: Tuileries Garden

Image: A grove of trees stripped bare of the summer cover in the Tuileries Garden, Paris

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In July 2009 I introduced a regular Friday Photo ‘section’ to the Compleat Traveller, but for reasons I no longer remember, I stopped making regular updates (the last photo appeared in November of that year). However, since I have thousands of photographs waiting to see the light of day, I have decided to reinstitute the Friday Photo section with this post.

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Image: Time to ponder

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Yesterday, I wrote about the Tuileries Garden in Paris, and thought I’d add some extra photographs here for your viewing pleasure.

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Image: Slowly melting ice/snow slips towards the edge of this café tabletop

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Image: A murder of crows looking for food

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You can see larger versions of these photographs and many others through my Flickr page here… or click here to watch a full screen slide show of all my photographs…

More Information

PS: You can find previous Friday Photos by using the search box at the top left of the page.