About

On The Dockyards: How Did This Project Actually Start? (2009–2015)

Welcome to The Dockyards! This was the initial logo of the website (used between early 2015 and late 2019).

This website was initially created as a separate personal blog on the WordPress blogging platform in late 2009. At that time, its main purpose was to represent a useful digital outlet through which I was able to easily publish and store media content as well as related articles on various subjects (most notably regarding the hobbies and diverse occupations or activities I had as a teenager).

Nonetheless, over the passing of time, this website had slowly (yet steadily) developed into something much more significant. That is exactly why I ultimately decided to take one step further with it in the spring of 2015 and turn it into a proper domain of its own, after a brief hiatus from blogging which lasted between early 2012 to late 2014.

14-year-old me way back in 2012, the year during which I stopped blogging for about 2 years

During the late 2000s, apart from my main WordPress-powered blogs and websites, I was also in charge of some minor other personal blogs of mine on Yahoo! 360° (mainly on animated TV series and video games) or Blogger (history and historical video games). However, the former ceased to exist as the 2010s would start and my remaining minor Blogger-powered blog was deleted by me in an attempt to unify part of my other articles into a single major blog on WordPress.

At the same time, I feel I should mention here that the first historical article that I wrote was on the Middle Ages in Ireland back when I was still 12 on my first WordPress-powered blog, after documenting myself from a history encyclopedia that I bought with my own pocket money. The same article was further expanded years later with more knowledge and many other related video clips worth watching.

During the early 2010s I also had a personal website of my own on which I mostly blogged about sports (especially football), animated TV series, rock and jazz music as well as old school, cult classic real-time strategy and role-playing video games such as the Age of Empires or Fallout franchises. It was also at around that time that I started to monetize my first website through Google AdSense which I definitely recommend to any other blogger out there reading this! Shortly after launching my personal website I was also the main author and webmaster of www.rockpedia.co which was a fan website on rock music active from 2011 to 2012.

At Hard Rock Café Bucharest in January 2020

Eventually, due to a series of mishaps and external causes which led to both my personal website and Rockpedia.co to become inactive, I created this website with a lot of previous historical material from one of my WordPress-powered blogs during the spring of 2015 with the intent of sharing knowledge to like-minded people.

Fast forward, as for the current form of this web project in 2021, all that any visitor will be able to read here still serves me (and, hopefully, can do the same for other like-minded people) as a useful digital teaching platform on which I was able to save various bits of information, some valuable knowledge as well as some fond memories in order to pass the everlasting test of time.

Subsequent Developments (2014–present)

In the historical old town of Sighișoara (Schäßburg) – 2015

It was in the autumn of 2014 that I decided to re-commence writing on a digital platform, after a brief hiatus from blogging (as previously mentioned). In the meantime, I also tried to refine my way of writing by learning as much as I could with respect to web design, primarily in order to aesthetically match the content that I wrote about.

Briefly put, the vast majority of the articles on this website revolve around Ancient and medieval history, but there are also separate series of posts on sports, real-time strategy video games (within the larger category of IT & technology), music, literature, and even films. For more details on all of the constituent sections of this website please refer to the category drop-down menu on the right sidebar.

The decision of naming the website ‘The Dockyards’ was purely based on my utmost love and constant, innermost fascination with the sea or the ocean. In this particular regard, ever since The Dockyards was launched (prior to redefining it in 2021), I have been constantly using header images that depict the sea, ocean, or just water in general. For example, a former header image (in use as of September 2019) depicted a picturesque medieval castle close by the North Atlantic Ocean in the countryside of the West Coast of Ireland.

The new logo of the website (in use since late 2019 onwards)

Alternative official logo of the website (in use since December 2021 onwards and made with Adobe Spark)

Below you can also take a closer look at the header image history of the website (starting with October 2015):

• October 2015–October 2016: The lighthouse from Reykjavik’s harbour (Nordurgardi);
• October 2016–May 2017: The reconstructed Ósvör fishing outpost museum at Bolungarvík, north-western Iceland;
• October 2016–March 2018: The black sand beach at Vík í Mýrdal, southern Iceland, highlighting the Reynisdrangar basalt rocks;
• March 2018–January 2021: A medieval castle in the picturesque Irish countryside close by the North Atlantic Ocean;
• January 2021–March 2023: Excerpt from the Flammarion engraving;
• March 2023–present: The Doonagore Castle (i.e. ‘fort of the goats”) in Doolin, County Clare, Southern Region, Province of Munster, southwestern Ireland.

The Purpose And Motivation For Maintaining The Dockyards

On top of the defensive walls of the medieval Seat Fortress of Moldavia in Suceava, Bukovina, Romania (March 2021)

The main purpose for maintaining this website after all these years is to still share as much information as possible regarding the main topics that I decided to write about in the very beginning when this project was initially launched.

In this regard, my personal motivation has alway relied on bringing as many facts as possible closer to my readership while dispelling historical myths at the same time. Therefore, the main long term objective for The Dockyards as a growing website on the world wide web is to still find itself in the proper, truthful direction of historical accuracy combined with high quality media content.

In the upcoming years, I hope that I will be able to expand the website with brand new articles on both ancient and medieval history, focusing on the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, the expansion of the Celts (along with separate posts on Gaelic culture as well), or the ancient Greeks and ancient Egyptians respectively.

Image source: www.pixabay.com

So it is that as of March 2021, the author plans to further surpass his literary limits and creativity while also adhering to the standards of ethics and morality with respect to digital journalism. Consequently, during the autumn and winter of 2021, a brand new series on the ancient Celts will be published on The Dockyards.

Image source: www.pixabay.com

A Brief Personal Description: Personal Interests And Hobbies

Very close to high school graduation (2016)

Some of my most significant interests include universal literature, playing on a series of musical instruments (most notably the acoustic, semi-acoustic, and electric guitars as well as the keyboards), listening to music comprising a wide range of genres (from alternative to jazz-rock fusion; one of the reasons why I’m also the webmaster of The Rockpedia), sketching, economy, and biological research (more specifically genetics).

In my spare time, I also do a lot of editing on Wikipedia primarily as a hobby, most notably on the English, French, and German versions. In recent years however, editing Wikipedia transcended into a daily activity rather than an occasional hobby. Last but not least, I feel I should mention I’m a great Weather Report fan, through both fair weather and heavy weather! I also like football and am a longtime Liverpool F.C. fan, through both good times and bad times (I know I had my share). My interest in football is purely observational and my fandom to Liverpool F.C. is relatively limited as of 2022.

Additionally, here’s a list of some of some of my all time favourite readings (novels, novellas, and volumes of short stories):

• ‘Siddhartha’ by Hermann Hesse
• ‘Inferno’ by Dante Alighieri

• ‘The Prince’ (Il Principe) by Niccolò Machiavelli

• ‘Robin Hood’ by Henry Gilbert

• ‘The Children of Húrin’ by J.R.R. Tolkien

• ‘The Story of Kullervo’ by J.R.R. Tolkien
• ‘Michael Kohlhaas’ by Heinrich von Kleist
• ‘Wind, Sand, and Stars’ by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
• ‘Little Prince’ by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
• ‘A Farewell To Arms’ by Ernest Hemingway
• ‘A Heavy Metal Memoir’ by Dave Mustaine
• ‘Tarantula’ by Bob Dylan
• ‘The Lords and the New Creatures’ by Jim Morrison (poetry volume)
• ‘Nostalgia’ by Mircea Cărtărescu
• ‘The Levant’ by Mircea Cărtărescu
• ‘Me, Dracula, and John Lennon’ by Jan Cornelius
• ‘Nadirs’ (Niederungen) by Herta Müller
• ‘The man is a great pheasant in the world’ (Der Mensch ist ein großer Fasan auf der Welt) by Herta Müller
• ‘Mein Vaterland war ein Apfelkern: Herausgegeben von Angelika Klammer’ by Herta Müller
• ‘Atemschaukel’ by Herta Müller
• ‘The Master and Margarita’ by Mikhail Bulgakov
• ‘Animal Farm” by George Orwell
• ‘1984’ by George Orwell
• ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ by J.D. Salinger
  
• ‘Nine Stories’ by J.D. Salinger
• ‘The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• ‘The Dubliners’ by James Joyce
• ‘Finnegans Wake’  by James Joyce
• ‘Three Men in a Boat/Three Men on a Bummel’ by Jerome K. Jerome
• ‘Pebble in the Sky’ by Isaac Asimov
• ‘Fahrenheit 451’ by Ray Bradbury
• ‘Brave New World’ by Aldous Huxley
• ‘The Doors of Perception’ by Aldous Huxley
• ‘Shogun, Volumes I & II’ by James Clavell
• ‘The Pigeon’ (Die Taube) by Patrick Süskind
• ‘Misreadings’ by Umberto Eco

Some of my all time most favourite quotes by some of my heroes:

‘There are things known and there are things unknown and in between are the doors.’

― Jim Morrison (20th century American poet, lead singer and main lyricist for the classic rock band The Doors)

 

‘All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost.’
― J.R.R. Tolkien

 

‘If a man can bridge the gap between life and death, if he can live on after he’s dead, then maybe he was a great man.’

— James Dean

 

‘The gratification comes in the doing, not in the results.’

— James Dean

 

‘Think you’re escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.’

— James Joyce

 

‘Integrity has no need of rules.’

― Albert Camus

 

‘Some people turn sad awfully young. No special reason, it seems, but they seem almost to be born that way. They bruise easier, tire faster, cry quicker, remember longer and, as I say, get sadder younger than anyone else in the world. I know, for I’m one of them.’
― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

 

‘Smart people learn from their mistakes. But the really sharp ones learn from the mistakes of others.’
— Brandon Mull, Fablehaven

 

‘So many books, so little time.’

— Frank Zappa

 

‘There is no friend as loyal as a book.’

— Ernest Hemingway

 

‘Paris vaut bien une messe.’

— Henry IV of Navarre and France

Last but not least, I truly hope you will find this website as useful as possible for you as it is has proven to be for me, so suit yourself and feel free to search anything you wanted to come here for in the first place. Enjoy!

Sincerely,

Victor

Personal business card

For work-related inquiries (e.g. guest posts or the like) please contact me over this e-mail address: [email protected]. You can also check my Europass CV and work experience on my LinkedIn profile here.

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Image source: www.pixabay.com