A look at Rocket Punch in 2023

Oof… nothing went right for me in 2023.

Things started well enough though and I was on track to finish a few kits by the first quarter. Then everything went down hill from there.

To summarize:

1. my myopia went up from -600 to -800 power in my right eye in early 2020
2. it then went up further to -1250 in early 2023
3. further checks reveal that it’s due to cataracts so I had cataracts surgery In March
4. all was well until May when the retina in my right eye tore which necessitated a vitrectomy surgery
5. recovery was slow on this one and I wasn’t cleared for all normal activities until end of September
6. then work and family commitments blew away October and in November there was a major illness in the family which went into December and basically made me uninterested in the hobby

All this is to say that I only finished one kit for 2023.

I do have a many in the queue in various stages of finishing though:

1. Hasegawa 1/72 VF-1S Valkyrie
2. TakaraTomy 1/72 Zoids Storch
3. Hobbyboss 1/72 Rafale C
4. Academy 1/72 F-18E ‘Top Gun Maverick’
5. Bandai HGUC RGM-79G GM Command
6. Hasegawa 1/48 Hawker Hurricane
7. Hasegawa 1/72 F-15E Strike Eagle
8. Hasegawa 1/72 F-16C Viper Blk 30
9. Academy 1/144 B-58 Hustler
10. ICM 1/72 Mig-29 ‘Macross Zero’
11. Hasegawa 1/72 F-2A Viper Zero

Realistically, I could have probably finished 10 kits this year if I hadn’t had the eye problem but oh well, I can only hope that 2024 will be smoother going.

Anyway lets see how the site itself did:

• I published only 16 posts totalling 9,300 words
• the site received 36,249 views from 15,889 visitors
• the most viewed completed build of 2023 was the Academy 1/72 Grumman F-14B Tomcat
• the most view WIP is the 1/72 Academy F-14B PT.2 – Painting & Finishing
• the most views of any type on the site was the Preview : 1/72 F-4 Phantom II kit comparison (Fine Molds, Fujimi and Hasegawa)
• most surprisingly is how much traffic the MiG-37 Ferret E build is still getting even in 2023.
• my site served a total traffic of 124.87 GB which sounds an awful lot but since it’s such an image intensive site, it really shouldn’t be a surprise.

So that’s it, Rocket Punch in 2023. It wasn’t great at all but well, things can only get better. 😀