Apparently Leone and Honea both rhyme with pony

A couple of weeks ago the magnificent Dan Leone presented me with the Blogging Mentor award, a meme designed to recognize and thank the people who have inspired, encouraged, and supported the blogger in their online efforts.

I’m not quite sure what I did to deserve Dan Leone’s award, I don’t think pronouncing someone’s name incorrectly and being jealous of their writing ability really counts of mentoring. But hey, I’ll take my praise where I can get it.

There are plenty of people who I owe a great deal of thanks to for their influence on my own blog. In fact if it weren’t for them then it is entirely possible that I would given all this up a long time ago. Here, in no particular order, are some of them:

Whit from Honea Express

Whit can take you from tears of laughter to tears of sadness in the space of one paragraph. He is a masterful writer, an shining wit, and an all round good egg. From him I learnt that there is nothing wrong with throwing the odd heartfelt post into the mix now and again. Not only does it make a satisfying change of pace, but it’s juxtaposition with all the knob gags surrounding it only heightens its intensity.

He also taught me the benefits of responding individually to each of your comments, You develop much more meaningful relationships with the people who read the blog that way. Unfortunately I lack the organizational abilities to do this with any sort of consistency, but the theory is sound.

Lee from Quit Your Day Job

Lee has put me back in touch with my inner geek. Over on his blog he writes intelligently and accessibly about pop culture, sci-fi, comics, movies, and everything else that makes life worthwhile. He also shares my interest and my ineptitude in backyard vegetable growing.

Lee probably doesn’t realize how much of an influence he’s been on my blog since I started reading him around a year ago, but he was one of the main catalysts for me branching out beyond my previously narrow parenting focus on the blog.

Greg and Deb from Greg and Deb on the Web and Toast Ambassador

These guys know how important they are to both Kerry and I so I won’t bore everyone by going over it all again. Just to say that such is my hero worship that even if they were the only people reading this blog I’d still be churning it out.

Becky from Becky’s T-Blog

Becky is funny. Bloody funny. She also does a fine line in highly creative very unique posts which I find hard to describe but have certainly tried to emulate.

She also has a very cool way of doing her blogroll which I am very tempted to steal.

bon bon from Phantom Kitty

Both Kerry and I are a little in awe of bon bon’s photography skills. We both used to console ourselves by telling each other that she must have immense technical knowledge and abilities which gave her a huge range of fancy techniques to draw from. Then we met her and she told us that she was as confused by the complicated half of the camera dial as we were. So she just has a massive natural talent then. Arse.

While my photo’s have always been of the more pedestrian family shot variety, my regular exposure to her excellent work have influenced to push myself beyond point and shoot. Such is her impact on me that I’m even considering buying a lensbaby.

Phil from A Family Runs Through It

Ever since I had a mid-blog-crisis in the middle of last year Phil has been incredibly supportive of me and my blog. He’s had nothing but kind words to say and has very generously sent me some really cool gifts.

I think I’ve said this before, but when I started this whole blogging thing I had no idea what a fantastic community I was plugging myself into. As an example, so far I have raised nearly £400 for my charity walk from the people I have met on the net. Anyone who says that blogging friend aren’t real friends clearly has their head up their arse.

Avitable from Avitable

In the dim and distant past Avitable reviewed this blog on a site called I Talk 2 Much. The review wasn’t particularly favorable, in fact he gave me zero out of five. But it wasn’t a hatchet job and to be honest he was correct in all his criticisms. At that time I was blogging as a sort of family record, and to the outside reader it probably was rather boring. The review didn’t bother me, I was blogging primarily for myself. But it did sow a few seeds of thought, and when around six months later I had my mid-blog-crisis I remembered his words when I decided to widen my focus a little.

Incidentally Avitable’s comments have all disappeared from that site, so it looks like he had a falling out with them. The quality of the reviews certainly appears to have deteriorated recently. They always took delight in being rude, but now it seems that they have chosen to be nothing else.

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It’s only when writing a list like this that you realize how long it actually should be. There are many others out there that deserve equal billing with the eight I’ve already mentioned. Therefore I’ve decided that instead of being a one off I’m going to make this post part one in a series. That way I can thank everyone properly. But for now we shall leave it that without Whit, Lee, Greg, Deb, Becky, bon bon, Phil, and Avitable All That Comes With It wouldn’t be what it is today. It’s them you have to blame. Death threats can be delivered to them via their blogs.

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Related posts:

1. The talented Mr Honea