An Award, Really, An Award for willis!

.....From my good blogging friend Annette. What can I say, the lady obviously knows scrap when she sees it. She has a wonderful blog, is a very talented writer, posts frequently and if she isn't one of your "favorites", she should be. I'm flattered by this award and her recognition of me and this little blog. The first thing I did was go to the other sites awarded by Annette and I'm also more than a little flattered to be named amongst them! Great blogs all (no surprise from Annette's "Just My Little Piece Of The World") and I'm ashamed to admit 5 out 6 were not on my blog roll...but they are now! Being lazy and an infrequent poster it took me a while to get to this post accepting this fine award. It is a pretty high honor for willis and I don't take it lightly!

Honest Scrap Award Rules (yep, there are some!):

1. You must brag about the award.

2. You must include the name of the blogger who gave you the award and link back to that blogger.

3. You must choose a minimum of seven blogs that you find brilliant in content or design (not sure how I fell through the cracks on this one!)

4. Show their names and links and leave a comment informing them that they were prized with this award.

5. List at least ten honest things about yourself.

.........then pass it on with the instructions!

I'll claim 1 & 2 done with the first paragraph of this post and will now list seven blogs to pass the award to. Difficult to do for several reasons. I have a set of blogs I visit pretty regularly and I link to their blogrolls as well as items in their post that expose me to more blogs than I can remember or stuff into one bag called "favorites"...so I don't. But from this I know there are good blogs out there far beyond the ones I know and to pull seven blogs out of my hat for recognition (willis' "recognition".....yea, well I'll get to that in a minute) is difficult. If you want to know which blogs I think deserve any award from me, just look at my blog roll and whom I follow! These certainly aren't in any order of preference as each of these blogs are unique and terrific in their own right (willis' clever disclaimer). Okay, an award from willis.....one might say who cares and that's okay and probably appropriate. None of these blogs need any recognition from me to be the great sites they are. This is really only the "willis edition" of this award and If I could add a rule to those listed above, I would say that none should feel obligated to do anything and willis is down with that.....word up!

First is "Field" at The Field Negro. Field's blog holds a bunch of blog awards and for good reason. He stirs it up just fine on issues of life, sports, politics and people in general and he does it with honesty, wit, humor and just plain talented writing ability. I really can't say enough about this blog, there's is just so much there you have to look and its very worthwhile. The Field Negro is a very powerful blog with frequent well researched post and has always been one of my favorite stops.

Second is Bill at Tome Of The Unknown Writer. I linked to the Tome Of The Unknown Writer from one of the other sites I frequent and once there, I never left. Bill can write, and like any of the other sites I'm "honoring" here, he could be paid columnist at any venue. Bill is different in that he should be. Bill does some wonderful stuff on his blog and is definitely worth the read.

Third is Madam Miaow at Madam Miaow Says... Madam Miaow hails from across the pond and keeps my love of all things English (Fawlty Towers, the irreverent decorum of the House of Commons, The Beatles, Eddie Izzard, etc) intact. She post with a beautiful blend of wisdom, wit, humor and honesty that you will enjoy immensely. She's bloody awesome!

Fourth is Doug at When Will I Use This?. Doug is a math teacher dealing with adolescents which should carry an award all by itself. I know he's not in it for the money. "mathman6293" (Doug's handle) writes about education, family, history, politics,the sciences and baseball. He's honest above all, the man pulls no punches and I love his post and displays of dry humor that show up in his and his lovely wife's blog. I have yet to be able to answer the question his blog title ask but a new question with every post works for me!

Fifth is Rachel at Art Of The Possible.....now with cupcakes! Rachel writes about her life experiences, her Mary Kay goodies, politics and feminist issues. She does it very well and is a joy to read. She always seem to provide me with a new perspective on something I thought I knew everything about.

Sixth is Tengrain's blog Mock Paper Scissors. Shouldn't be much intro required here. Tengrain along with several others are part of the reason I started blogging. Yes, you have him to partially blame for Old & N The Way. Tengrain is a master of "snark" and a true artist of display on a webpage. And lest I forget, he can write as well. One of the masters!

Seventh is John Coby at Bay Area Houston. There is so much stupidity down here in The Republic of East Texas that "Bay Area" never lacks for material. If ya think Texas politicians are only about the national stage, visit here for all the insanity on a local level. If you can't find it here, you can find a link to it. Every state should have a site like this one!

Ten honest things about willis.......you are allowed to go to any of the above sites at this time as I'm about to bore the pants off you ( me, I'd rather go with you but I have to do this instead):

1. I was in the Navy between `68-72 and I enlisted to keep from hiking around in rice paddies in Viet Nam. Another wonderful war that solved nothing.

2. I was stationed on a troop carrier ship (USS Duluth) and the first place I went after enlistment was Viet Nam. I spent all 4 years on this ship and while Navy duty did keep me away from rice paddies we did get some mortar rounds lobbed at us from the beach occasionally.

3. I taught myself to play guitar, bass and keyboard while on the Duluth generally out of boredom. The option was playing cards. While on the ship, I and others formed a band that played on the ships flight deck for the crew from time to time and when visiting ports in various countries we would "sit in" and play. As a result, I've played clubs in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, The Philippines, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. That was a blast!

4. I call this lovely lady my "first wife" and you may see her comments here from time to time but know that she is my first and only as well. She's a character and keeps willis honest about himself which has always been a problem for some reason!

5. I have one child; a wonderful, beautiful daughter who is an adult now and still lives with the first wife and I....and we love it. She's is just a beautiful person regardless how much I did to screw her up!

6. We have one dog and a parrot for pets although we had three cats, two birds, and a dog at one time. The current pooch is "Buddy", a black russian terrier which translates to about 150 pounds of black fuzzy dog. The Parrot is "Tiffin" (named for Merlin's owl.... she is so wise!?) and she's a goffin cockatoo. I used to think it was a male bird as it always humped the mirror (mine's mounted very high for a reason it seems....who knew?) but the color of the eye iris is the determinate.....they can live 65 years!

7. I current play bass guitar in three music groups. Two church venues and a regular band.

8. I have mostly republican friends. It is east Texas ya know. Over all I find them very good folks and otherwise very intelligent people. I'm not sure what happened along the way but I know I can't correct it by arguing with them and they are sure aren't gonna change me! I don't hide my opinions and I let them think of me what they will.

9. I drive a 2007 VolksWagon GTI. It can handle anything I need to play a gig or golf!

10. I've thought some about giving this blogging thing up. It turned out to be more effort than I thought although I do enjoy it! This award is an inspiration and I feel I do have some people to offend yet so I'm in!

My apologies to each of these folks I've blessed!

willis