Copyright (c) Lou Zygadlo.
Dear Diary:
Weather today -- cool
Mood today -- contented
Fly count for yesterday -- 0
HF Today -- 373%
On behalf of my son, Michael, I would like to thank Lou Zygadlo of LFZ Studio. Each month, this kind and generous artist holds a drawing for one of his signed and numbered prints. There is one drawing for adults and one for kids. Michael was the lucky winner this month! He will receive a gorgeous print called "Yellow Brick Road" which looks like this:
Michael is indeed very fortunate and is thrilled that he'll be receiving this exquisite print. If you have not seen Mr. Zygadlo's site, LFZ Studio, you are really missing out. Mr. Zygadlo has been working in oils on plastic for some fifteen years now and his original works as well as prints are available at his site. In addition, the site is one of the most highly acclaimed and most highly awarded on the entire web, with good reason. It really is exquisite, and I encourage all to visit, sign his guestbook, and bask in the glow of his luminescent abstract art. Mr. Zygadlo's work is currently being shown in Chicago, and he has recently been honored with an entry in a prestigious art encyclopedia. On top of all that, he is a truly kind and generous soul.
I would also like to extend my heartfelt thanks to Al Schroeder, a fellow online diarist who heaped lavish praise on Elly's Slice of Cyberpie in his "Nova Notes" yesterday. I'm touched and honored to receive such priase, though I am a bit embarrassed as I feel it's entirely unwarranted. However, I appreciate it and wish to thank Mr. Shroeder for his kind words. He has a fascinating and captivating site that is filled with everything from hard science (mostly physics) to humor. I've definitely a fan and will be visiting daily to keep up with his journal.
My dentist appointment yesterday was what I'd term successful: I didn't need valium to get through it. Dr Lau determined that the pain I'm experiencing is caused either by a second tooth which will need extraction or a root canal, or the normal pain that accompanies extractions. He told me it takes at least a couple weeks for the pain from extractions to subside and about three weeks for the hole to begin close over. That being the case, I have opted to wait another week or so before making a decision about further extractions or root canals. I'm taking the positive attitude that the pain is caused by the extraction on Monday and will subside by next week. :)
The pain killers I've been ingesting have put me in a most benevolent mood, so I'm doing as many site reviews for awards as possible right now. I really like to be in a good, positive frame of mind when I visit potential award recipients' sites because I want to give them every advantage. I think I've been pretty generous with the awards this week, and in fact I have about eight or nine sites to add to the list of winners. If you have a website, now is the time to apply for one or more of my awards! Information can be found at the page entitled "Awards You Might Win". Please note that those who have already received the Heavenly Page Award or Elly's Slice of Cyberpie Award are eligible for these new awards. I've designated Sundays as the day I'll award a winner of the Elly's Gem Pick of the Week Award. I had originally planned for this to be limited to one site per week; however, there are so many terrific sites being entered right now, I think I'm going to have to go with multiple winners. I know of two so far this week to whom I would like to give the award, and I really am incapable of making a choice between them because they are both first class sites.
I want to design a custom background for my guestbook, but this is a low priority and therefore is not getting accomplished. I like the badkground I currently have in place, but it would be fun to have one of my own originals there. Perhaps I'll get to that project sometime this next week. I don't know if most of you are aware of it, but I have a new page called What's New that has the PageWatch notification feature on it. If you'd like to be apprised of when changes to these pages are made, please sign up there. I am excluding diary entries and diary archive updates, as these occur daily and would be most annoying as part of the PageWatch notification system.
I've been doing my share of awards seeking lately. I think I've applied for about forty of them in the last couple days. It will be interesting to see what pans out from all that effort. Thus far, I have nine awards I need to add to my awards pages. It's interesting to me to note how some awards affect me as rather ho-hum and others are lusted after in a way that makes not receiving them nearly unbearable. When I first started on my webpages back in August, one of the first awards I ever saw was Wynterhawk's Award for Excellence. I have lusted after that sucker ever since. Unfortunately, it's no longer being offered, so there is no hope of ever satisfying that desire. Others have struck me the same way. I currently have about ten on my "lust list" while the rest are ones I would like to receive but won't be devastated if the answer is "no." Isn't it weird how certain images become so important to us? Or is it just me? I remember one award I applied for about seven times... Patty's Award of Excellence. This one was on the lust list because it features the prism image from Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon album. I applied and applied for that puppy and never heard anything. Finally I wrote to the reviewer and told her flat out why I was being so persistent and how much it would mean to me to receive it. Thankfully, she was quite reasonable about it and gave me the award. Ah, the lengths we awards sluts will go to in order to meet our lusts. LOL.
I had a slight panic attack over another award a few days ago. This one was one I was *sure* I'd received several months ago. But when I looked at the winners' list, my site was not listed... which made me wonder if I was nuts and had been displaying an award to which I'd not been entitled. That's a recurring fear on my part; I don't ever want to be caught displaying something which I have no right to display. I asked the bestower about it and thankfully it was an oversight on her part. I'm not particularly concerned with the link on her page, but I *am* concerned that I act with integrity. I'm glad that one got resolved.
Okay, I've been mellow about soliciting votes for the Ambience Award. But this is dragging on far too long! *Please* vote for my site and put all us five contestants out of our misery! On top of that, I'm now displaying the Rate-A-Page logo because I'm waiting for their reviewer to check my site. *And* I've signed up for some other you-vote-for-'em type awards, so expect to see more listed in the near future. If you've not voted for the Ambience Award one yet, all you need to do is click on the email link, but the code number in the subject line and say something along the lines of "please cast my vote for Elly's." It won't take you but 30 seconds... and it would make me such a happy camper to win! Thank you to all those who have already voted. We (the five sites entered) are suposed to get an update when a total of 25 votes have been cast, but I've not heard anything yet.... so y'all need to get busy voting! :) Please note you can vote only one time per email address.