It's been quite the interesting and educational first week of running my witness.
Bumps in the road
I missed my first block opportunity. It turned out that I had transposed my public key, so it turned out to be an easy fix to get up and running again. Thank you to 
Wins
I've been fortunate to have some of the most supporting folks vote my witness. I am currently sitting at position 95, while I can't thank you all individually here, I do appreciate every single vote I have received.
I have now witnessed three blocks and everything is running smoothly to this point.
My witness is fully updated to exclude BTC-e from the price feed
I was happy to donate 30 SBD to
to help start a new RPC node.
Musings
I believe it's important that a witness is dedicated to the steemit platform. I am still a minnow, but that is in name only. My mind is fully into Steemit and I will be investing heavily into Steem with my own funding.
As you can see here, I delegate a good portion to others. Yes, I understand that is to my own curation detriment, but I fully believe in the projects my delegation helps to support. The future of Steemit relies heavily on new content creators and my witness is dedicated to continuing to help where I can. The more you can give, the better off the platform will be and the better off you will be.
The projects I currently delegate to are:
- The Steemhouse Fiction Trail conceptualized by
,
,
, and myself.
- Yes this is my own account, but it directly helps the members of the Minnow Support Project
-
is a wonderful talent and has developed a great curation initiative with his sassy little bot
- Another of
's ideas. It's an extra thank you to those the delegate to
-
developed this to help bring recognition to the arts on Steemit, while my talent is not as artistic as I would like, my love for the arts is real.
- @ nogbot - Because reasons.
I wish I could do more, and as a witness the Steem I receive will go to further projects. If you have a project that you would like delegation to, I can be easily reached at the PALnet Discord - https://discord.gg/E2fYkeb. Private Message me with your fully realized idea and if it's something I can get behind, I will consider a delegation. My Discord handle is (@)Shane#1517
Future goals
- I am currently teaching myself Ruby and beginning my programming journey to start adding value to Steemit other than social and delegation.
- MSP Radio will be starting soon where I have two shows in development.
Payouts
I will be claiming rewards for my witness updates. Since my main goals are growing the platform, it seems to be a wasted opportunity to pass up the chance to grow this account where it will be used to help others.
Final thoughts
There are still 18 Dead Witnesses ahead of me with votes. A couple are probably updating, but there are several that have been dead for many HFs. If you currently have your witness vote going to one of these dead witnesses, please consider switching your vote to swelker101
You can check to see if you are voting for a dead witness with this handy tool: https://witstats.steemliberator.com/
How to vote?
- Use the witness page https://steemit.com/~witnesses
- scroll until you see this box and enter
swelker101 - click vote and accept my virtual hug!
Proud member and supporter of the #minnowsupportproject - brought to you by 
