Blog Biz

Just a little blog business to get out of the way...

I straightened up a bit around here. I guess the rain that finally came got to me. I've been furiously tagging my pics on Flickr and furiously tagging my posts on MMATM. All of them... I had tagged about 15 of them before, and then I truly tagged them all... 155 of them, deleted 3 or 4 really stupid ones, and then cleaned up the tags :) I'm still working on the Flickr ones.

I also added a tag or label cloud on the left sidebar, and deleted the archive by date since that was a clunky way to search for a post... if a topic strikes your fancy, click on the tag over on the left and see something you might have missed!

I joined Twitter. Technically I joined it several months ago, but found no use for it and feared a humongous waste of time... I still fear the latter. Anyway, you all can follow me on Twitter (one can always use more followers to boost the ego) and in addition, I put up a widget in the sidebar (bottom left) tracking my latest 5 posts. My username is simple... @mmatm_red. I've run into a lot of birders over there... if you click on my name, check out who I'm following. I still need to add several others I know are on there, I just haven't gotten around to it.

I also rearranged the locations of some of the sidebar thingies... if they are in a different spot than you are used to, I'm sorry. Hopefully it's a minor adjustment. I also added a nifty little image advertising the Great Backyard Bird Count. It's coming up you know... of course you do!

You too can put this on your blog... they have a page where you can drag your favorite button to your harddrive... and I do mean drag... that was new to me. Then just upload it to your blog anyway you like and voila... I happened to make mine clickable, here's the code:

<center><a href="http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/"><img src="http://IMAGE_LOCATION_HERE/GBBC01.png" /></a><br /><br/><a style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 1.5em;" href="http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/howto.html">It'll be my first year... Join me!</a></center>

Just paste it into a new HTML (or current) widget you have on the sidebars. Obviously you can easily change the text of "It'll be my first year...etc."

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I also was awarded a very nice award by JG of Hotch Pot Cafe.

The Premios Dardo Award "acknowledges the values that every blogger shows in his or her effort to transmit cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values every day." I'm truly flattered because I have no idea what category I might fit into with this :) Thank you JG!

I have bad news though. I'll be breaking the rules. I'll selfishly hang onto it and while I find so many other blogs worthy of this award, I'd hate to put pressure on them to pass it along as well. Everyone over there in my blogroll I find more than worthy of this award.

Too many of my blogging friends have a policy now of not passing on awards, and I think I'll join them and for the same reasons. They are flattering for sure, and recognition is ALWAYS nice, but essentially they are just a higher form of email forwards and old-fashioned chain letters. Not only that, I just don't have the time to search out new blogs that haven't already received this and accept and pass on the awards.

Blogger Award

My second award came from Leedra. Leedra is an excellent nature photographer so I'm truly honored. Thank you!

She gave it to me about a week ago, but I've just been so busy I haven't had a chance to post about it and pass it along.

I think CarrotJello may not be into putting awards up and passing them along, but I'm giving it to her anyway, because her blog is one of the most entertaining out there.

I'm not sure who else to pass this along to right now, so when I do I'll update this one.

I received my first blog award!

Darla from her wonderful blog, Family and Flowers gave me this award. Thank you very much!
To misquote Sally Field... "You like me, you really like me!"

I did some clicking around and found it originated with Patricija from Wisdom of Heart this past Sunday. I'm honored to have received one that hasn't been around forever. That is not to say that I wouldn't want one that has!

Patricija is from Slovenia. She gave it to a bunch of people including Kostas from Greece who gave it to The Fishing Guy who gave it to Darla who gave it to me. I doubt I could do all those links for one that's been around a long time.

So thank you Darla, and here's the list of excellent blogs I wish to award!
In random order because my bookmarks are in random order, lol.

• Lynne from Hasty Brook because she sees, snaps, and mostly knows a wide variety of animals, especially birds.
• Zhakee from Sierra Nevada Ramblings because she puts a lot of research and thought into her blogs.
• Mary with her View whose posts are always hilarious, often informative, and she makes you hope she's got a new post every day to make your day.
  
• CarrotJello of OinkleDoinkle whose posts are always a joy to read - not to mention all the comments she receives! She rivals Mary on my google reader hoping.
  
• LuLu of Lutheran Lucciola who is just a hoot! She's fascinating and everyone should read her blog :D
• RuthieJ of Nature Knitter because she's a motorcycle mama and nature lover and hunter AND knitter who is doing projects for auction to donate to charity! An incredible woman!
  
• and of course, my mom... I mean who doesn't thank and share credit with their mom?

And as a related aside (due to the international travelling of this award), my sitemeter informs me that in the last 500 entries, I have visitors from 22 different countries! Sweet! Now, if only I spoke more than english and a smidgen of spanish and french! Especially since towards the top I have 4 unique visitors each from the Netherlands, Germany and Romania! Anyway, welcome, beinvenido, g'day, benevenuto, etc.

Oddly enough, though this award has gone from Slovenia to Greece to the US, I have no visitors from Slovenia or Greece. Maybe I will now? I also have only been visited by 29 different US States.