The Versatile Blogger Award – Bestowed upon me by experiencedtutors

It is my great pleasure to accept this award from experiencedtutors. You should really go over and have a look at his blog. He discusses his trials and tribulations as a private tutor in the UK as well as presenting little vignettes of life in and around the place where he lives. It’s a little like going on a wonderful vacation for the price of an internet connection and a humble web-browsing device.

There are times (quite frequently, in fact) when I feel like I’m the only reader of this blog. It comes as quite a pleasant surprise that there are people out there in the world that not only read my blog but see it fit to “give me the nod” with an award such as this. As always, there are certain duties attached with receiving such a prize. One such duty is to post the requirements and obligations that come with accepting such an award:

Instructions

They are as follows:

1. Display the Award Certificate on your blog – and link that image back to your nominator [Last part as per experiencedtutors – I think it’s an excellent idea and I would add that the link should be to the blog post that you are nominated in. That way you also get to promote the other nominees and your followers get to read new blogs.]
2. Announce your win with a post and thank the blogger who nominated you.
3. Present 15 deserving bloggers with the award.
4. Link your nominees in the post and let them know of their nomination with a comment.
5. Post seven interesting things about yourself.

I am not as much of a rule-breaker as experiencedtutors so I will endeavour to live up to Instruction #3. I will also use this as an excuse as to why I have not posted this sooner. Instruction #5 will be tricky as I’m not sure I am interesting enough to have seven full things to share. Therefore, I apologize for the quality of said seven items in advance as I had to stretch the quality to make up the quantity (I now feel like the manager of a factory in a communist country desperately trying to make his monthly production quota of widgets).

Nominations:

I am pleased to nominate the following bloggers (in random order):

1. Gary Hilson – a great blog about food, writing and dancing (not necessarily in that order) by technology writer. It’s a very interesting read.
2. Science-Based Pharmacy – a serious blog discussing some of the quackery that is palmed off as legitimate pharmacy practice and the application of a skeptical mind to pseudo-science health products.
3. Celticillumination – an excellent telling of an Irishman’s experience in the RAF. His writing often has me laughing to the point of tears.
4. Masquerade – a wonderful photo blog. He has a great eye for lighting and framing a picture.
5. Pressed Words – I love Amsterdam and the Netherlands in general. This blog documents the life of woman from the States living in Amsterdam. I am so jealous.
6. Photo · Lord – another great photo blog with a focus on “photojournalism and nature”.
7. frugal feeding – recipe and food photo blog with an emphasis on inexpensive creations.
8. Everything Will Be Alright – a blog much like my own with a little bit of everything as a subject. The author has been published in the role-playing game (RPG) domain and has a sprinkling of RPG-themed posts as well as many other topics.
9. Things Could Be Worse – a blog containing mostly funny pictures with humourous titles. I like to read it as it always manages to make me laugh even when my day is going to hell.
10. Vankleek Hill Photo Club – a photo blog focused on the town of Vankleek Hill, somewhat near Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He has a very good eye at capturing a subject or emotion on “film” and his captions nicely frame what you’re looking at.
11. Things I Hate….Some I Like – a bit of a rant blog, softened with posts about things that the writer likes. I find myself nodding my head in agreement while I read.
12. bottledworder – a blog mostly about writing. I like to read it as I often find inspiration to write within her posts.
13. storyshucker – the goal of this blog is to present the essence of a given story the author is recounting. I love the direct style of writing.
14. Street of Dreams – this blog is very well-written and I enjoy reading it.
15. Skeptical Raptor’s Blog – a skeptical blog that is well-written and researched. I like that he lists all his references in the footnotes of a blog post for further reading on a topic.
16. Cristian Mihai – a writing blog by an author from Romania, a country I have some affection for.
17. I Am Begging My Mother Not To Read This Blog – These are the amusing adventures of an underemployed young person in NYC. It does sound a bit cliché but the writing makes certain that it is not.

These blogs are a collection of more “professional” blogs (some of which are using the wordpress platform under their own domain) as well as more “hobby” blogs (like my own). The common theme is that I feel they are all doing something interesting with the WordPress platform and with blogs in general. You’ll also notice that I went a little beyond 15 blogs because there is really a lot of interesting writers on WordPress and it was too hard to narrow it down further.

Seven Interesting Comments About Me

1. I’m fascinated by why things work the way they do, especially in economics and politics. The one question I would like to answer is how someone can obtain absolute power and manage to hold on to it for any length of time. Also, why do economic systems work the way they do and why does the majority of a populace support policies that mainly benefit a few elites?
2. I am avidly trying to lose weight. I have a plan, in conjunction with a personal trainer friend of mine, to lose a bunch of pants sizes. Stay tuned as I’ll likely post something on it.
3. I have been fortunate enough to travel a fair amount in my home country of Canada, a goodly amount in Europe and a bit in the States. If I could travel with my family for a living I would jump at the chance.
4. I wish I could give up sleeping to have for all the important things in my life: my children, my wife, my books, my writing, my coding, my miniature painting etc.
5. I learned drive a car with standard transmission only recently and now I never want to go back to automatic. I finally understand what they are going on about in Top Gear.
6. I love cats and I own a black one named Zorro. He’s named Zorro because he is that awesome.
7. I have (almost) managed not to kill the African Violets on my desk at work. Needless to say, they haven’t bloomed again.

That’s about it then! Go forth and look at the blogs I’ve recommended; they really are written and produced by truly talented people.