Saturday, December 6, 2008

There's a lot of territory to cover in this post, so let's discuss all the major issues:

Kristin went to the mall yesterday. She came home with a new sweater which she had bought for me. Now, if you'll recall an earlier post, Kristin and I had agreed that we would not be exchanging gifts for Christmas. Therefore, she should not have gotten me this "gift." Kristin then indicated that it wasn't for Christmas, that I could have it now. Who knew that you could get around the Christmas gift ban by simply saying something is not for Christmas? So you can see what I'm dealing with when I try to make agreements with Kristin. In some respects, she's like a lawyer always looking for a loophole. From now on, every time we make an agreement, I'm going to need a contract that's two inches thick to cover every contingency so that she can't get around the basic spirit and intent of the agreement.

Then last night, we went to dinner with the Nunnelly boys, Garrett and Patrick. Normally, one might say that they were in rare form, but from what I've seen before, this was a normal game-day performance. We covered lots of ground. Here are some thoughts from the evening:

• Both Pat & Garrett indicated that they were fans of this blog. (Seriously, though, can you really find someone who's read the blog who isn't a fan?)
• Neither of them were happy that they didn't receive blog awards from me a couple weeks back when I decided to acknowledge certain people. Who could have known that that would have created such a firestorm of controversy? Listen, people, this isn't T-ball; you don't get awards just for showing up! Awards are meted out for outstanding achievement in the field of excellence. If you step up your game, you may be recognized in the future. The question is, what can you do to to be recognized. We'll get to that a little bit later in this post.
• Based on last night's events, both Garrett & Pat indicated that today's blog post had to be really good. My apologies, but I don't think I can live up to that standard. I mean, there was a lot of good material from last night's dinner, but I'm not allowed to reproduce much of it (too much sensitive material). In fact, I even wrote down notes this morning of the important items to discuss, but I still don't think I can do enough of what it takes to meet such lofty expectations. So I apologize if I let the two of you down.
• With my readership growing to such great levels, I am quite proud of what this fine blog has achieved. More people are reading it than I expected (my expectation was that no one would read it, but it sounds like I may even have at least five readers). Anyway, the only people not reading it are some of the potential grand parents of our first child (TBD). They are either "busy" or not technologically competent enough to type in a simple URL. They even claim that I "have too much time on my hands." You know what, it's going to be their loss. When grandchild #1 comes along, they'll have no idea, as it will be announced here and only here. How do you think they're going to feel when they've been left out of the loop? And they'll have only themselves to blame.
  

OK, so let's shift gears a bit and discuss what you have to do to win an award from me. Essentially, these awards are handed out only when you help make this blog better. This list is not exhaustive, but here are some things you can do:

• Get Kristin to post. We're getting up to 40 posts sooner or later, and Kristin has contributed exactly zero of them. This blog was set up to be for and by both of us. If it's just me, this blog loses a certain amount of credibility. This blog would be more "fair and balanced" if she wrote on a (semi-) consistent schedule. In fact, for every post I write, Kristin reads it, laughs, and comments that I'm a dork. Clearly, I need someone "cooler" than myself for balance. If you can convince Kristin to contribute, you will get an award.
• You can comment on my posts. Since I don't know anything about the internet, I have no clue how to see how many people are visiting the blog. So I can only tell who's reading it by your comments (either in the blog itself or via email). Comments within the blog are especially useful because we can generate a sense of "community" that is sorely lacking.
• You can guest blog. This blog is about presenting ideas, important ideas. As one man, I can only do so much. If you have something to say, you are more than welcome to say it here. Just send me an email with your post, and I will put it up and indicate that you are the author. You might even realize that you have a special talent and that you should start your own blog. (Garrett and Patrick, I'm looking in your direction.)

It's not me who makes this blog great, but you, my loyal readers (actually, right now, it is me). So let's work together to make this blog something special.

That's it for today.