I Cracked A Century

Today marks a special day around this Dude’s house.  What you are reading is my 100^th blog post. When I started doing this I never thought I’d hit 10 posts, let alone 100. In fact, I wrote 10 my very first month and thought that I’d exhausted my creativity. But somehow I’ve cranked out another 90 posts and if you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’ve read at least one of them. If not, I suggest you go back to the beginning and read each one in order. It will be almost as exhilarating as watching an old lady write a check for a gallon of milk at the supermarket, I can promise you that.

Thanks for your support, Wilt!

As you undoubtedly know from My Favorite Season: TV, I am a sitcom buff. If such a thing exists.  And if you watch sitcoms, you know they always hype the 100^th episode, because that helps them reach syndication and ensures that the producers’ grandkids’ college is paid for. The episode is rarely as exciting as the buildup, yet I’m utilizing the same teaser strategy for this post.

So while thinking of a topic for this post, I remembered that I’ve been honored by not 1, not 2, but 3 bloggers with awards lately. Since very few bloggers get paid, many give each other awards as recognition for amazing writing or to avoid chain letter curses.

I recently received awards from 2 ladies, who rock my world every week with their humor, thoughtfulness and, most importantly, passion for snark.

The awesome Zannah from Write, Rinse, Repeat gave me the Kreative Blogger Award. (And yes, it’s ironically misspelled like that.)  Zannah is a sweet Southerner who is very inspiring to me as a writer. Partially because she is like a younger, female Larry David who says the things everyone wants to say, but few ever do.  And she’s very tan.  

The amazing Sarcasm Goddess from For the Love of Writing presented me with the Very Inspirational Blogger Award. SG is a mystery wrapped in an enigma, coated in a layer of thick-cut bacon. She is a thought provoking writer about some serious stuff and also about how she hates playing kickball. She also loves bacon. A lot. Like most people like oxygen. I believe it is her edible muse.  

So those two ladies, and someone else that I can’t remember or find the link to, gave me awards recently. I guess they think I’m a good writer or something. These things usually come with stipulations.  They usually ask you to fill out some questions, list 10 random things about yourself and then select some other bloggers to receive the award to keep the chain letter ghosts from getting you.  So I’ll do just that.

The questions, directly from Write, Rinse Repeat are:

1)      What is your favorite song: Lately, The Weight by The Band. Though that could change in 5 minutes. It tells a great story in an eloquent way. And has a great chorus, too.

2)      What’s your favorite desert? Probably Mojave. But if the question is intended to ask about my favorite dessert, as most people answer it, I’d go with Banana Cream Pie.

3)      What do you do when you are upset? Depends on the cause. Usually, I honk my horn at the person who cut me off.

4)      Which is your favorite pet? Sort of a trick question, as I’ve only really ever had one.

5)      Which do you prefer, White or Whole Wheat? Whole Wheat is healthier, so I tend to lean in that direction. Not that I generally eat healthy otherwise.

6)      What is your your biggest fear?  That I’ll write a word twice in something tons of people will read, notice and laugh at me.

7)      What is your attitude mostly? Sarcastic. Duh.

Here’s the point where I’m supposed to list 10 random things about myself. Wouldn’t you know it that I just did that for a post not too long ago? Check ‘em out here!

11 Bloggers who I think deserve awards:

Zannah listed 7 bloggers and Sarcasm Goddess listed 15, so I’m going right in the middle with 11. They are amazing writers and good friends. Even though I’ve never met them in real life. Their writing inspires me to become a better writer. They make me laugh and I think one almost brought me to tears. Once. Check ‘em out:

Louise at Raising Ivy

Delilah at Confessions of a Semi-Domesticated Mama

Kim at Mama Mzungu

Oren at A Blogger and a Father

Adrienne at The Mommy Mess

Kimberly at Sperk*

Jen at Kvetch Mom

Joe at Living in Kellie’s World

Tracy at Scribblesaurus Me

Wendy at LMAO with Wendy (Liebman)

Michelle at The Journey

To the winners, here’s what you need to do now:

1)      Thank and Link back to the blog you awarded you (i.e. me)

2)      Answer the 7 questions above

3)      List 10 random facts about yourself

4)      Pick 11 bloggers to pass one of the 2 awards listed above to

5)      Buy me a new car (optional)

I could have listed 50 more, but here’s a sampling for you of some of my favorites. I hope you’ll check them out and tell them I said hello. They might even buy you a drink.

Thanks for checking out my first 100. Here’s to the next hundred (gasp)!

My First 10K

As I sit here today deciding whether or not to renew my gym membership, you know there’s no way I actually ran a 10K, right? Over the weekend my blog passed 10,000 page views since I launched it last summer. At the time, I was just trying to put some thoughts on paper for the first time in years.  Well, not actual paper. Virtual paper, I guess.  As the folks at Dunder Mifflin know, no one really needs real paper anymore.  

Why I do everything I do.

On July 4^th 2011, it all started with: "Independence Day means I'm free to work on this!".  I felt a rush of inspiration, like Angelina Jolie watching Slumdog Millionaire.  Since I have two wonderful subjects to write about: my wife and son, I sat down and started writing. It felt great to be creative again.  I figured that I could write whatever I wanted, assuming that no one would ever see it. And I’m glad I was wrong about the latter. 

I’ve met some great bloggers who’ve guided me along the way.  And I’ve been fortunate to find some loyal readers for my little page. Or I guess you’ve found me. How did you discover me anyway?  

As my life has evolved so have my posts.  I know they aren’t all great, but then again neither is every episode of The Simpsons and that’s been on TV for 20 years.  I put everything I have into each post and am thrilled to receive your comments and feedback.

My posts seem to strike a nerve every so often. My recent post “The Last First” became my all-time 2^nd most viewed post within two weeks of publishing. That’s pretty great. It also helped me win my first award. Check it out:  

If you have any ideas for future blog posts, or anything else you want to talk about please feel free to leave a comment below.  One of my favorite posts:  "What is a Dude?" spawned from a conversation with one of my readers.

To those of you who Like and Follow me on Facebook and Twitter: Thank you for wasting your time at work with me. I can’t think of anything better for you to do between 9 and 5. I'm sure your boss can’t either.   (If you don’t Like/Follow me, what are you waiting for? Here’s a personal invitation.)

When I started this blog I had absolutely no expectations of anyone even finding it on the web.  And now, I’m thrilled that you have -- over TEN THOUSAND times --  and hope you’ll hang out for a while.  And if you want to bring a few friends to the party, I’ll buy the next round. 

Thanks for helping me hit 10,000!

-- Jay aka The Dude of the House