Whew, barely caught it! Happy (just 1 day late) Birthday to Karla! I hope you had a fantastic day - and may the future hold many wonderful things in store for you! (By the way, loving the new design! It looks great, Karla!)

The strangest thing is going on. When I’m at the office, I can’t access a number of sites - including Pixels in Time and Snazzykat. It seems that our office IP is blocked -not just my IP, but all of ours here (so Kymberlie can’t visit either from the office.) I also asked the techno guy to check it out, and he said the same thing. They both seem to be hosting with Aletia? Maybe their server has blocked us out? I can see the sites just fine from home, when my IP is different thanks to RoadRunner.

I tried to e-mail Cheryl & Erika - but it bounced. So if you guys are reading this, yell at Aletia! I want to read your blogs!

First off, a huge CONGRATULATIONS to Candi - today is the big day! I hope they are having a wonderful time! Best wishes in your forever together! (I also hope she will come back and blog again - I refuse to remove her from the sidebar because I won’t admit that she’s gone.)

Second, and nowhere near the same level of excitement, we have set up a BlogOmania! webring! So if you’re hosting with BlogOmania!, come on and join the ring! (If you have several blogs, add them all! I am!)

Sue’s post about not commenting in Chris Pirillo’s blog got me thinking. Especially when I read Gretchen’s (uh, Mrs. Pirillo) comments. She wrote, “There are some blogs where I just am kind of “afraid” to post… mostly on the ones that seem to already have a really tight-knit comments posse and I think “How would they take to a ‘new’ person/outsider posting? Are they going to think I’m weeeeird?”

Is that it? Is that why so few people leave comments here? I see you passing through. I’ve even had e-mail from some of you … but no comments. I love comments! I never consider them silly! I get giddy when I see them in my e-mail. Seriously. Excited. Last Saturday I was bummed because I finally had time to post and no one left any comments. Is it my own fault? Is it because I don’t leave comments enough? I try to, I really do. It’s been pretty busy in my life though the past 2 months. I know I haven’t been able to read all the blogs I would like to read - but I try. Hmmm…

Well, here’s your chance. You tell me … why don’t you leave comments? Come on. Say it. Let it out. That’s what it’s all about anyways…

Dude, check it out! Al’s Journal - Al Roker has a blog! I loved the pictures in his photo section too. I’ve checked out his cartoons in the past. But I’m thrilled that he has a blog! [via Bona Fide Cynic]

It’s moving time! But not for me - for Sherry! Lookie! Comments! w00t! Sherry & Karezilla moved in with Bran-O-phelia at BlogOmania! w00t!

I’ve had people ask me if BlogOmania is set up similar to some sites that have one giant account and then divide the account up among smaller sites. That’s not the case. Your space is your own, you need to have your own domain name (only $13.50 a year at 000domains.com!) and we have the power of Hosting Matters behind us. Why host with Blogomania instead? Well, first and foremost - we are blog-centric. That’s all we care about. We have 2 commercial sites residing with us - the rest of the sites are blogs. And as an added perk, since we are blog focused, our rates are lower! So, if you are sick & tired of BlogSpot being down, come on over. Or if you don’t like sharing your space. Or if you are with a company that says “don’t post these files on our servers because we could all be shut down”. (Ugh! How would you like to be shut down because of someone else?) We don’t have any of those issues. And we would love to have you join us…

Something to almost fill the void: Ads.com Launches, AdCritic Vows Competition. “After two years in development, Ads.com today launched a Web site where consumers not only can replay current television commercials, they also can get information about companies and their products.” I have really missed AdCritic.com ever since they shot down last fall. I am glad to see Ads.com go live, but the site leaves a little something to be desired. I found the search feature especially limiting. On the other hand - they tell you technical details such as the music used on an ad. For that the site is great. On that note, I leave you with Blockbuster’s Flashdance ad. Long live Ads.com! [via The Shifted Librarian]

*cough* Fourth Annual Masturbate-A-Thon *cough* Hey Robyn! I wonder if we know *cough* anyone *cough* who would be a good contestant for this? I wonder if he could bring the secret files full of porn that I doubt his wife knows about? *wink* I just couldn’t let this one pass me by…

(And no, the guy isn’t Todd, in case you wondered.)

I found myself at Alexa and I wondered what I should search. I know! I’ll search for “blah”. Still #1 I see. But what’s this? You can see Related Info for: blahblahblog.com/! How cool! I love the “People who visit this page also visit:” section! Hey, I’ve never denied that I am easily amused… [via Anil, sort of. He was talking about Alexa.]

For a change, I think I’ll do PromoGuy’s Monday Mission on a Monday! NOTE: I stuck a sappy story in at the end too, just as added incentive to get you to read the whole thing…

1. When was the last time you pampered yourself? Hmmmm… not recently. I need to do that soon. I had a nice manicure & pedicure for my birthday last year. 7 months ago - too long! Then again, pampering comes on all sorts of levels, and I do little things for myself from time to time.

2. When was the last time someone pampered you? Hah! Good one. Uh, I don’t know. It’s been ages. Sometime last year? (Then again, being single has been one of the pampering to myself items, so I can’t complain!)

3. Describe the last time you recall really feeling loved (other than from children or pets). Again, “really loved” comes on many different levels too. I haven’t felt loved by someone in the romantic sense in some time. (At least a year.) On the other hand, I felt really loved by friends as recently as the beginning of April, when we went through the whole server move with Blogomania to the new home - the supporting e-mails and the offers to help from everyone kept me going during some otherwise trying and difficult days. (THANK YOU to everyone.)

4. Has your use of the computer ever caused any arguments? What’s the story there? The IO used to have a HUGE issue with it. I dont’ even want to think about the horrible things he said … I don’t even want to think about it. Moving on.

5. What’s the most embarrassing thing your Mom ever did? Hmmmm… I think it has something to do with the genes in our family, or maybe it’s my parent’s sense of humor or something, but I really don’t embarrass too easily. I can’t think of anything that she has done that has embarrassed me.

6. I’ve met some adults who’ve never learned to swim, and others who never learned how to ride a bike… Is there anything that you never learned as a child that you probably should have? I never learned when to shut my mouth.
7. I have no idea who said it (and I spent all of two minutes trying to research it), but “someone” once said, a picture is worth a thousand words. Post an image that says more than words. Or instead, describe a picture you recall which touched your heart. I just posted it yesterday in the Pixelog. The picture of me with my Grandpa Z a month before he passed away. My Grandpa S died 4 years before I was born, so I never knew him - so Grandpa Z was the only grandfather I ever had.

(Now here’s the sappy part. It’s long - sorry.) I started my job in June of last year, but took off the first week of July for vacation so I could visit North Dakota & Minnesota - to see my family. A month later (the beginning of August) my grandfather passed away. The owner of the company was very understanding and allowed me to bring Jason to work with me for 4 days - we didn’t go to ND for the funeral, but my parents did - and since my Mom watches Jason while I’m at work I didn’t have a babysitter. Shortly after that, his grandfather got sick and passed away later that year.

When I was a little girl, my grandfather used to give me silver dollars all the time. That was the big treat when you saw grandpa - he gave you a silver dollar - and I will always associate them with him. In March, we had some transitions here at the company. We didn’t downsize, we didn’t lay people off - we fired 3 people that were causing havoc for the rest of us. They were truly toxic, and after they were fired (and the police had to come because they were violent, broke things and made threats) we had a company meeting. The owner of the company talked about how he values trust, and how he trusts every single person here to have the company’s best interest at heart. How he believes in all of us. Then he said how he & his grandfather used to collect silver dollars. They would go to trade shows to collect them even, hunting for the best ones. When his grandfather passed away, he inherited the collection. It meant a lot to him because of all the memories - and he wanted to share it with us. Throughout the rest of the day he met with us one-on-one to get our feedback on where the company had been and where we wanted to see it go. To thank us for our hard work, and for believing in the company even in this tight economy. For sticking it out. And he gave each of us one of his silver dollars. I cried, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who did.

My silver dollar is sitting on my desk. It reminds me of what is truly important, of why I love my job, and what it means to do your best. And it reminds me of my grandfather too, who was a wonderful example of all of those things.

In case you don’t read through all of the posts I made over the weekend, here are some things to note:
- You can now klip for this site. (Get KlipFolio. Read headlines. Super cool.)
- You can also get a klip for Well, Slap Me Silly!.
- Want to get a “digest” of blogs? Yesterday’s posts, all in one handy e-mail? You can by using Bloglet. Sign up for mine below. I’ll add it to the sidebar later this week. Let me know if you sign up too!

Tivo remembers to catch all of my favorite shows for me, but just in case - here is a list of when all of the season finales will air. [via Promoguy]

Speaking of season finales, did anyone watch the second Law & Order: Criminal Intent last night? Did you it give you flashbacks of the whole Kaycee Nicole thing that happened last year? Whoa. I kept thinking about that, over & over. It’s amazing the hoaxes that people pull off. I still feel bad about all of the kind-hearted people that were hurt by that. I was stunned myself when the truth came out - I would have never questioned it otherwise.

Tess ranted one day about ants. I posted in her comments a question - had she seen the article where Researchers find 3,600-mile ant supercolony. In case she hasn’t, there it is. [via Amit]

Know what’s difficult about BlogOmania being on such a stable server now? No one has any support requests! There is no stress and panic over the sites being down. Matter of fact, things have been really calm. I like it. It’s the way hosting should be. (I’m almost afraid to post this, thinking I will jinx everything if I do!)