This is my first year participating in the Ultimate Blog Party hosted by 5 Minutes For Mom. I am very excited to meet so many wonderful new people. For all the people here from the Blog Party, I want to welcome you to Cakeblast! Here is a little bit about me and my blog.
My name is Larry and I am the father to two amazing little boys. I began blogging in late 2005 after the birth of my first son River Cobain. To see the earliest posts of my son’s website, you will have to look in the archives on the sidebar. In 2006, a school professor had us design a WordPress blog. I created a blog on my own domain Dollpenguin.com (my email/MB nickname at the time) and fell in love with WordPress.
On Dollpenguin, I wrote a few articles about bands that I liked, local events, and technology. I realized that nobody was reading my blog except my wife Becca and maybe a few people from school. I quit writing posts after a few months and Dollpenguin died quietly.
I think it is only fair to point out that I am 34 years old and had gone back to school in 2005 because I did not want my son to have a Dad who barely earned $9/hr as a machine operator. I was working in electroplating but had designed web pages for fun since 1995. I did not pursue a career in web development until 2005 after my wife got pregnant. I graduated Cum Laude in 2008 with a degree in Visual Communications and haven’t looked back.
In August of 2008, Becca convinced me that I should start a new blog because I loved to write on forums, comment boxes, emails, and anywhere else I could find somebody who would listen. I did a domain search and saw that Gnoise.com was available. Instead of just buying the domain, I set up a free WordPress hosted site and worked on my template. I then wrote a post called “Making Gnoise” and described my intentions for the blog.
By the time I was finally ready to buy the domain, it was gone. Apparently some German search engine thought of the name Gnoise at about the same time I had. I continued writing while I wrangled my brain to find the perfect name for my blog. In a flash of brilliance, my soulmate Becca suggested cakeblast. On September 6th, 2008 Cakeblast was born as a self-hosted wordpress.org website and transferred to its own domain!
I enjoyed writing about many different things, but did not have a niche. One day I was writing about Hip-Hop Harry and the next I was writing about how to upload a favicon to WordPress. While looking up info on various parenting issues I happened across Mom Blogs. That changed everything.
I began reading several blogs regularly and put them on my blog roll. Then one day a favorite blog of mine, The Mommy-Files, had a giveaway for a Toshiba laptop computer. I entered and blogged about the giveaway. I don’t mean a snippet, I mean a 500+ word blog post!
I did not win, but I became hooked on giveaways. I created a blogger account to follow people on Google Connect and easily enter giveaways. I added the widget even though I did not expect anyone to follow me. I was thrilled when Go Graham Go became my first Google follower!
I eventually redesigned my blog so I could have the side-by-side buttons on the sidebars, while making my site easy to navigate. Several of my ideas came from Steve Denbo‘s series 29 Days To A Better Blog. The more I read MomBlogs, the more I started getting a feel for what I thought was great and what I thought was wrong. My biggest influences include Icefairy’s Treasure Chest, J Leigh Designz, and Baby Loving Mama.
I want to note that I am talking about influences more than friendships. The most successful blogs are run by smart, honest, and friendly people. There are millions of Moms blogging but there is room in the blogging world for many more voices. Competition does not have to be cutthroat because it isn’t about winning some contest. It is about writing whatever we are passionate about, socializing and making friends. And winning swag.. we all love swag don’t we?
Okay, blogging isn’t really about winning swag but face it; it is cool to win great stuff! I mentioned halfway through this post that last summer I wrote an overlong post while trying to win a Toshiba Laptop. At Ultimate Blog Party 2010 they are giving away an even better Toshiba Laptop.. the Toshiba Satellite L505D-ES5025 so it only makes sense that I write an even more overlong post in an attempt to win! This time, if I fail to win the Laptop, there are other great prizes to win as well. Here are my 3 top picks!
3 More top picks
- #104 – $50 Visa Vanilla Gift Card.
- #109 – Beauticontrol Microderm Abrasion Creme and Buffer
- #19 – Prize package of Hasbro preschool toys!
If I fail to win any of those prizes, I would also love to win (in order of preference) #83, #39, USC 39, USC 3, USC 15, USC 8, USC 13, #104, USC 37, USC 57, #32, #107, #1, #3, #2, #49, #71, #100, #73, #74, USC 33, USC 34, #37, #72, #52, #55, #35, #59, #50, #58, #87, #95, #11, USC 36, USC 27, USC 32, USC 36, USC 25, #57, #31, #13, #20, #34, #91, USC 63, USC 5, #18, #5, #10, #96, #15, #78, #48, #106, USC 4, #25, #41, USC 28, #42, #60, #108
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