My Fourth Hiversary!

Four years ago in July of 2017, @pixelfan tried to get me to follow him to the blockchain, but it just sounded too good to be true, so I didn't bite. Then in September, he repeated his call that "Ya seriously gotta come check this out!" So, I finally came and I'm glad I did!

≈ It's my FOURTH Hiversary! ≈

As urged in the blockchain's Welcome Message, I read the official FAQ several times over the course of my first couple of weeks until the pieces of the puzzle finally began to come together. Sadly, it doesn't appear that those new to the blockchain are reading it nowadays.

One month to the day of being on the blockchain, I finally signed-up for an account on Discord and began networking heavily with others. The first group I joined was PowerHouseCreatives (known as SteemitBloggers back in those days). Next, I joined a women-oriented community, then the @minnowsupport project's PALnet, then TheRamble run by @shadowspub. Everywhere I went, I soaked up information like a sponge, being very intrigued to learn how everything worked! I think I learned the most in TheRamble from all the live events there such as the weekly "Pimp Your Post Thursday" live-curation shows and the "Curation Corner" where project leaders on the blockchain were interviewed. After the shows ended each week, there were often lengthy "after-chats" where even more could be learned. We also had fun, networked, and learned during "Words with Witty" (by @enginewitty), "Pants are Optional" (by @snook), and other events. Then there were the monthly "Witness Chats" which were immensely informative. PALnet had their own lineup of shows that were very informative to newbies, too, and there are still a couple there now as well. "Cyber Buzz" with @crimsonclad is one of my personal favorites on Saturdays at 1900 UTC.

By December of 2018 after just over a year on-chain, I was invited to help found @theterminal Discord where we assist those newly-joined to learn the etiquette and workings of the blockchain and Discord. We also research other communities and help the newbies find the ones where each could best grow and thrive. @theterminal is still going strongly today. I am able to share my knowledge there, and some of the questions have me scrambling for even more knowledge and answers. It has been a very rewarding experience in many ways!

_{^{badges by @hivebuzz · animation by me}}

_{^{screenshot from my wallet in PEAKD with Opera GX}}

Now for a brief, humorous diversion. My favorite web browser is Opera GX. Both the 'GX' version as well as standard version of Opera have a cool feature built-in. When one highlights something on the page, a little 'tooltip' box appears with options in it. The 'search' and 'copy' options are always there. If one highlights a URL, the option "Go To URL" appears, too. If one highlights something that looks like a measurement or a financial sum, however, a conversion appears.

Since "HP" is a standard unit of measurement of "horsepower" ^[source], when I highlighted the amount of my Hive Power (HP) to copy it to this post, Opera offered me a conversion to Kilowatts! So, I have 15056.97 kilowatts of power staked into the Hive ecosystem! 😂

One year ago today, I was 1,257^th on the list of Hive stakeholders. I had cashed-out my STEEM holdings last year and converted them to HIVE. I have continued growing this year but more slowly, as I've given away much HIVE & HBD for charity, prizes in contests, tips in Discords, etc. But I did manage a nice PowerUp recently due to the sale of some Splinterlands assets. I also cashed-out a bit of WLS and BLURT, doing a PowerUp with it, too. I also bought a little bit of HIVE here-and-there along the way. Now I have 20,191.736 HP, which moves me to 631^st place in the HP Rankings, although I still have a long way before reaching Orca.

Not that the following numbers are so important, but I currently have 1993 Followers, but of course, many of those are no longer active on the platform. My Reputation Score is currently 71.16, which is a reflection of how many folks with a higher Rep than me have upvoted my posts. That number isn't so indicative of anything, as some folks who have only been here a year or two are Rep 75 already because they post a lot of dTube or 3speak videos and get hefty upvotes from those projects, etc. We seriously need to overhaul the Rep system to actually mean something.

Along the way, I have also participated in quite a number of communities on-chain as well as servers in Discords. Notable among them — not counting those already mentioned — have been @ladiesofhive which I co-founded along with @silversaver888, @thealliance, SilverGoldStackers, @innerblocks, The Observatory (formerly UnityGuild), The Kindness Collective, and many, many more!

_{^{screenshot from my badges page in PEAKD}}

I've collected a dozen badges on my blockchain profile and quite a handful in my HiveBuzz profile. Big thanks to @hivebuzz and @arcange for keeping us notified of our progress on-chain and for adding special milestone markers such as HiveFest attendance badges, PowerUp badges, et al. for us!