The Very Inspiring Blogger Award — 2013

I want to thank Valentina at carmenisabelgonzalez.wordpress.com for nominating The Eye-Dancers site for The Very Inspiring Blogger Award –2013.  Please visit Valentina at her site–it is a wonderful and diverse platform where I’m sure you’ll want to spend some time browsing around and enjoying all of her great posts.

I also wanted to mention that Carissa at ramblingsofabipolarwoman.wordpress.com had nominated me for The Very Inspiring Blogger Award recently, as well.  Apparently, this is a very similar award, but not quite the same one!  I had already been fortunate enough to have been nominated for this award late last year, but The 2013 Very Inspiring Blogger Award nomination allows me the opportunity to share with you Carissa’s wonderful site.  I hope you’ll check it out!

As part of this award, I have to share a few things about myself so here it goes:

1. I am a big fan of Alfred Hitchcock movies.  “The Master of Suspense” was a remarkable and groundbreaking director, and his resume is jam-packed with cinematic triumphs.  My favorite Hitchcock movie is Rear Window.  Only a very accomplished and confident director would tackle such a script, where the entire film takes place in one room of a small apartment.  A real masterpiece of a movie.

2. At the age of two, I declared I would never wear a short-sleeved shirt again.  (I called them “arm shirts” when I was little.)  And, to this day, I have, with only very few exceptions, kept my word!  I’m not sure why, exactly, but I have always been more comfortable in long sleeves, even on the hottest of summer days.

3.  Some people have asked me which of the four main characters in The Eye-Dancers I most relate to.  Well, the four protagonists in the novel are inspired by some of the neighborhood friends I grew up with.  That said, I am probably most like Mitchell Brant.  When I was Mitchell’s age, in junior high, I shared his shyness around girls, his love of comic books, especially The Fantastic Four, and his overactive imagination.  So, Mitchell has a special place for me among all the characters in the book.

4. I have enjoyed James Bond movies for many years, but to me, there is only one real 007, and that is Sean Connery.  Pierce Brosnan was good, too, but none of the other actors in the series can match the original Bond.

5. I took German for three years in undergraduate school, but today I have forgotten almost all of it–due to disuse.  I can still count in German, and there are a few words and phrases I remember, but if I had to converse with someone in German, I wouldn’t be able to understand 99% of what they said.  I regret that, because I enjoyed the language when I studied it.  It just illustrates that the best way to learn a new language is to immerse yourself in the culture for a while, and really talk to people.  Classroom learning of a foreign language can take you only so far.

6. Even though I grew up in Rochester, New York, and now live in Vermont, I do not like winter!  And I am fed up with snow.  For the most part, I spend the winter looking forward to spring.  People sometimes laugh at that and say, “You don’t like the snow, but you live in Vermont?”  I always counter by saying I enjoy the other three seasons in northern New England.  So–three out of four isn’t too bad . . .

7. My favorite board game is still Trivial Pursuit.  When I was a teenager, my parents would invite some of their friends over for one Saturday night each month to play, and I would always join in.  In time, we managed to acquire eight different versions of the game (the regular trivia box, a sports edition, a movies edition, a Baby Boomer edition, a TV edition, a Vintage edition–you name it, we had it!).  So, here we were, playing the game, and when someone landed on a color on the game board, their team had to choose which box they wanted a question from.  For instance, if you landed on a Pink square, you could choose Entertainment from the regular box, Titles from the Movie box, Football from the Sports box, Sitcoms from the TV box, and on and on.  It became a tough decision just to figure out what category you wanted, let alone answering the question!  The games were a lot of fun, though.

8. I can be long-winded sometimes.  See questions 1–7 above as proof . . .

And now it’s my privilege to nominate the following websites for The Very Inspiring Blogger Award — 2013!  Please visit these sites.  I’m sure you’ll enjoy them as much as I do . . .

http://fairytaleepidemic.wordpress.com/

http://myfavesjournal.com/

http://charronschatter.com/

http://fashionskyfall.wordpress.com/

http://transcendingbordersblog.wordpress.com/

http://ramblingsofabipolarwoman.wordpress.com/

http://caitlambert.wordpress.com/

http://plantbaseddietadventures.com/

http://bondingtool.wordpress.com/

http://redpeffer.me/

http://dearkitty1.wordpress.com/

http://hearingwiththeeye.wordpress.com/

Thanks again to Valentina and Carissa for nominating The Eye-Dancers!  And thanks so much to everyone for reading.

–Mike