Farewell from Justin (Daddy Knows Less)

Crap. Crap. Crappity. Crap.

Really? You mean to tell me not even the CIA was strong enough to bring down the likes of Mama Spaghetti? She is a dastardly and wily villain indeed (shakes fist).
I'm just glad to finally be done watching that finale video... I mean, really... I just got finished... and it's Saturday already. Geez. Long enough? It takes less time to get the Peanut to bed. No wonder it took so long. It looks like Heather was working on that thing in some kind of underground cave... by candlelight. I could have sworn I saw a Chilean miner in the background at one point.

As for me... don't cry for me, Argentina. (Yes, I just dropped an Evita reference on you.) I'll admit I went through the five stages... I started with self-loathing. Then came anger. Then I went to the gym, which relieved the anger and ushered in the denial. Then came remorse. As in, did I do enough to win? And finally, acceptance. I did all I could.

All kidding aside, I am very proud of the work I did in this competition. Like I've said before, I stayed true to myself, and maintained a certain level of integrity in my posts and my own blog. And it got me within a fraction of the victory. I'm proud of that. Not that I wasn't a complete spaz behind the scenes and didn't bombard Heather with emails about anything and everything.

So now it's over. Put the champagne back on the ice. Somewhere in a small east African village, they'll soon be wearing "DKL Blogger Idol 2011" championship t-shirts.

But a funny thing happened on my way to Blogger Idol glory... I found some great new blogs to follow. But I also made friends. That's right. A couple of weeks ago, friend requests started popping up on my personal Facebook page. Roni, Chris, Derrick, Heather... who's next? I thought... I'll be a monkey's uncle if these people aren't my friends! Funny how that happened.

And while I'm disappointed, things could be a lot worse. I have an awesome wife and daughter, a super dog, a cool job and a comfortable house. A lot of people don't have those things. People like the family Heather featured on her blog this week. Please check out that post and help if you can.

I leave you with a final bit of wisdom, from the uncle about whom I wrote the post I thought would win me this thing: "Sometimes the best don't win... but they never lose."


Thanks for a great experience. See you on DKL.
-Justin
http://daddyknowsless.blogspot.com/

THE FINALE! Who's claiming the title?

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Blogger Idol FINALE voting starts NOW!

This week was a bit different.  There were only TWO contestants left.  Each of them did TWO assignments, for your viewing pleasure. Read the posts and scroll down to vote.  Voting closes at 11:59 PM CST on 9/8/11.

PLEASE READ:   Make sure you VOTE IN BOTH POLLS!  This is very important for tallying the final score.  It could be very detrimental to the results if you don't vote properly. 

The first assignment was a 'Letter to Your Future Author Self.'  The finalists had to write a letter to themselves in the future, reminding them of the things they didn't want to lose track of.  Here are those two assignments:

Dear Future Me by Mama Spaghetti

Allow Me to Reintroduce.... Myself by Justin Mannato

The second assignment was the writer's choice.  They did their best to choose something that reminded you of why they made it this far, and why they deserve your vote.  Here are those two assignments:

The Best Dad I Know by Justin Mannato

The Men in My Life by Mama Spaghetti

 

VOTING IS NOW CLOSED! STAY TUNED FOR THE FINALE TOMORROW!

Farewell from the Bungalow

You want to know what made this competition great? I mean, aside from the fact that in its first run, Heather was able to put together a nifty writing contest with fun prizes from scratch and keep it all running smoothly? Aside from the fact that, even though I had my doubts about some of the assignments, I was (admittedly) impressed with my own ability to churn out a decent post week after week?

The contestants.

I'm super pleased to have made some friends from this. At least, I'd like to call them friends. I don't know if they're ready to take our relationship to the next level. *wink* I was pleasantly surprised at some of the inter-contestant banter during the past two months, and the encouraging comments we'd leave for each other each week. Like I said in my last post, it's about community. This is what I love about blogging.

While I can't say that I'm not disappointed, I really am grateful to have made it to the final three. Being in the bottom three more often than not was scary, and I was afraid early on that I wouldn't be able to draw enough votes to win the whole thing. Turns out my worry was justified.

This has been a great experience! I've stretched a bit as a writer, made some friends and built some sense of community. I've been introduced to--and have introduced some of my readers to--some great, yet relatively unknown blogs. I've also gained a few readers. I generally don't worry about "the competition" because I figure there are enough readers in the world for all of us to share. And in my experience, sharing is always a plus.

It's been a real pleasure, folks. Keep reading, sharing and commenting. And keep writing, because "writers are the new rock stars."

~ Chris (http://fromthebungalow.wordpress.com/)
Join the conversation! FtB on Facebook, @fromthebungalow

P.S. I'm lining up a couple of exciting projects for the blog. I hope you'll join me!

Week 10 Elimination

I know that you have all been waiting, and writhing in agony, and tossing and turning in bed just waiting (Mama Spaghetti.... Justin... and Chris)...lol.  So I will just get straight to the point.....

Watch the video... find out who is making it to the finale next week:

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