Half a Decade of Being Awesome

On December 10, 2004, I decided that I'd start writing a blog. Back then, Carp Dime was simply known as The Single Guy. The blog wasn't anything special in those days. I didn't strive to write something every day. In fact, I didn't put much thought into writing on the blog at all. I would post something once every few weeks at best. Eventually I stopped posting all together. For a while, I even forgot my password and let the blog fall away into oblivion.

And then, after a few serious life changes, I put forth some effort into this thing, remembered my password, and you haven't been able to get rid of me since. And now, here I am, five years later, still writing blogs. Now, initially I wanted this post to be a little more than just me writing a bunch of lines that you may or may not be interested in reading. I wanted to finally post my first ever video blog. However, due to technical difficulties, that just isn't happening. Something about my camera not being compatible with the video editing software that I have. It's annoying, really. But I digress.

I doubt there's anyone out there who's been reading this thing since the beginning. Some of you are apparently gluttons for punishment and have gone back to the beginning and read all my posts over the last five years. I appreciate the devotion that takes, but am I really that interesting?

All that is to say, today is the fifth anniversary of this here blog. There have been a lot of ups and downs since its humble origins. There have been good times and bad times. There have been funny posts and not so funny posts. Through it all, there have been plenty of readers out there who still seem to be interested in the random things that pop into my brain.

And so, to show my appreciation, I'm going to steal an idea from my fellow blogger, Shannon, over at The Shanner of Attention. Not too long ago, she celebrated her first full year of blogging with a giveaway. I thought that was a really cool idea, so I'm stealing it. You, my loyal readers, have a chance to win a $25 gift card to Amazon.com. Isn't that exciting? Please, try to control yourselves. If you're at work, people could be watching you.

Now, here's how this little contest is going to run. The first thing you need to do is look over on the left side of my page. Click the follow button. You have no idea how excited I get when I see that my number of followers has risen. Next, leave a comment at the bottom of this post. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. It can be a compliment or a complaint or a suggestion of something you'd like to see here in the future. Please note that multiple comments from the same person does not mean multiple entries. We have to keep it fair.

I'll accept commenters' names until midnight next Thursday, December 16. At that point, I'll take all the names and the lucky winner will be chosen at random. And then I'll mail you your priceless prize, as long as it's inside the US.

So good luck to all the contestants. And, seriously, thank you for showing up here as often as you do.