Happy Anniversary to me!

One year ago today, I started One Ping Only. I was inspired by reading and enjoying Ernie's Little.Yellow.Different daily for months beforehand and, through his being nominated, many of the other nominees of the 2004 Bloggies. Its limitations aside, Blogger made it so damned easy that I jumped in with both feet, really only having the idea that I would include links to news stories and sites of interest that I would otherwise send by e-mail to my friends or family, with a bit of commentary. No one told me, however, how hard it would be to get them to remember to go read it! So it became something else over time, with a few detours along the way and many other blogs crossing my path.

It astonishes me today to think of life without this outlet and this connection to people who I may never meet in person but who have come to mean so much to me and whose company in the blog world I value so highly. Special mentions and heaps of gratitude have to go out to The Trinity -- fat dude, gary bibb and copygodd, for putting up with a novice blogger and becoming my friends and my mentors, whether or not they really intended to! Many thanks also to BytchInNY, cbeck, Kevin, Norman, Liberty Bob, April and Howard for being, well...great, and to the other bloggers I've had the pleasure of getting to know over the last year. Last, but by no means least, thank you to those of my family and friends who do stop by and who often give me great ideas.

So how to celebrate such a momentous occasion? With a contest, OPO-style, of course.

Beginning Monday, I'll have the details up for a contest that I'll hope you'll enjoy taking part in, with the chance to win a few nifty prizes. Rita will be helping out with the judging of this contest, which should give you a clue as to what it will be about.

I'd put it up it today, but I figure that the weekend isn't the best time to start something like this (at least, according to the site meter, it's not!), and being up in Tahoe, well, I'm not able to do it justice. Let's just say that I'm a bit hobbled when it comes to technology at the moment. (Dial-up is cruel torture to someone who has become complacently accustomed to high-speed, wireless access!)

To make up for the delay, here's a picture of how I spent a good part of my day today.



Hope to see you back here on Monday. In the meantime, enjoy the playoffs tomorrow if you're into football, or enjoy the fact that football season is almost over if you're not.