Today Lingua Franca is Four Years Old

Today is January 1, 2012.  For the Western World, this day is known as a New Year when millions and millions of persons make special plans for the future.  These future goals are called New Year’s Resolutions. Some of these resolutions will be remembered for only a few days and then swept away under the rug until the next year.  The goal most people write down is weight reduction.  Diets are popular New Years Resolutions.  Fat bellies are a no-no.

I’m no exception.  I have selected three New Year’s Resolutions which I have every intention of following by the book.  Here there are in order of relevance:

• Purchase a DSLR Canon EOS Digital Rebel T2i  18MP by December 2012.
• Continue to polish up my English communication skills.
• Study formal photography through digital books downloaded through PC Kindle

All of the above are essential if I want to keep enhancing Lingua Franca.  Today I starting making cosmetic changes, like inserting a new heading image.  The new header picture depicts the Port of Balboa at the entrance of the Pacific Side of the Panama Canal.  It was made stitching three pictures of the landscape to capture the whole port area.

Ports are places where there is an intense movements of merchandise coming and in and going out of a country.  It’s a place of constant movement day in and day out.  Vessels from exotic countries bring in merchandise and collect merchandise to transport to other countries as well.  They never stop working.  Ports bring the world together.  They are like the windows of a nation.  Through its facilities, ideas, communications, transportation, and physical products change hands making the world a better place.  In a general sense, ports are the conduits of world commerce and this creates a Lingua Franca, where all people use the same language.  That is what Lingua Franca is all about; a language that reaches every corner of the world interacting with its people using text, sounds, and images.  That’s why I selected a port for the new header picture for 2012.  I hope you like it.

We reached the landmark of 724,234 page hits during 2011.  The goal is to reach one million hits by the year 2013 or sooner if possible.  Reaching this goal will only depend on you my dear readers.  Lingua Franca is for you—like a port, on a 24/7 basis.  Together we can make this endeavor possible.

Any assistance you can give me by promoting Lingua Franca through your friends, coworkers and/or relatives will be greatly appreciated.  Word of mouth has proved to be highly effective as a marketing strategy.  The main subjects of my posts will be about life in Panama City, photography, family values, and technology.  All of these topics are very dynamic and many of you will probably will be interested in searching for information on these subjects to make your daily life more pleasant.

Today we are celebrating our fourth year writing almost daily posts in Lingua Franca. The same consistency is expected for year 2012.  If health permits, there will be at least one post per day.  Most of these posts will include  images related to the topics discussed.  For the time being, the pictures are not really professional photographs per se; I would say they are snapshots.  However down the road, I intend to start posting real photographs based on formal photographic technical rules.  This is not an easy job.  It’s more easily said than done.  But you already know the famous quote of Lao-tzu, “A  thousand miles journey starts with a single step.”

Happy Birthday Lingua Franca, I wish you the best in 2012.  Let’s reach those far away ports,  which represent the reading needs and expectations of millions of readers in every corner of the globe.  Good Day and Happy New Year as well.

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