There are a number of things in my life that I feel strongly enough about to put in writing.

Submarines, family, my country, politics, and of course lean and leadership principles. All of these things and a few more have been a part of my life for more than fifty years. I am discounting the first sixteen years of my life because I was a pretty scattered young man when it came to important things. It wasn’t until I was seventeen and raised my right hand for the first time that things began to focus.

I started the blog at a time when my life was in a transition period. Writing just comes naturally to me and I love telling stories. Now, 900 plus stories later, I have a pretty diverse collection here on theleansubmariner. Sometime this coming year, I will reach a thousand stories if I keep the pace up. There are a number of stories that are now in a “private” category since they were deeply personal and often political. Time will tell if I republish them at a future date. To be honest, I knew that there would be some who would not like the political posts. I have done political posts infrequently all the way back to the age of Obama and have had the same feedback from the same characters. It’s typically not very nice.

Some things to understand and remember about any blog.

First, someone needs to pay for the web site and software package used. That would be me. I have faithfully paid WordPress and the domain people for years to keep the site up and visible. I do this from my own limited income with the blessings of my First Mate.

I own and have copywrited all of the original content but have freely given permission for anyone that asks to include them in other works. I have never charged a fee as I have developed my stories or shared stories from credited sources.  That allows me to be both creative about the content as well as maintain control of that content.

Here is the real kicker: You are free to come and share the stories and you are free to avoid them.

That is the amazing thing about free. No one has forced you to come here and no one will force you to stay.

There are many stories left to tell. You can search any of the previous 900 plus stories. If you only want to read about certain subjects I have written about, there is a search feature on the page.

You are also free to call me all manner of evil names and curse until your testosterone level rises to a semi-normal level.

You can howl at the moon as far as I am concerned. You are also free to start your own blog and have your own opinion. You can spend thousands of hours of your own time researching the Library of Congress, the national archives, every Navy site in the world and combine them with your own amazing stories to show people how a real blog should look like. I look forward to visiting it when you are done.

But as long as this is still America and I have my first amendment rights, the blog contents for the leansubmariner will remain my choice and my domain.

Thanks to the many thousands of people who have dropped by and left legitimate feedback. Sometimes I miss a fact or two or rely on sources that did not get it right. So that kind of feedback is always welcomed and will be shared.

Next year, the focus will again be primarily on submarines and I am adding Vblog videos to complement the collection.

December will be spent putting together the framework for those videos.

Mister Mac