MOI? A Thinker?

Wow! I'm flattered today, really very flattered. My favorite law student, Shelby Dupree thinks I'm a thinker and, as such, has even given me an award for it today. Check it out there, folks - off to the right side of my blog and you'll see the nifty little icon that says I'm a recipient of this award.

Imagine this if you will - or if you can - I am virtually speechless! Ok, I'm semi-recovering from the shock of this event and will try here to follow through and point you, in turn, to blogs I read that make me think - and maybe even explain "why" they do that for me too.

1. This blog ALWAYS makes me think! It often makes me laugh too he takes various issues, sometimes even really serious ones, and picks at them. It used to be titled "Letters I Wish I'd Written" but now Bob calls it An Odder Point of View. Either way, Bob writes a great blog, gives a different perspective to lots and lots of things. Check it out if you don't believe me. And, if you do follow my directive here, be sure to go beyond his current postings too and dip into his archives and see how many things he expounds on that you've most likely felt the same way about them at one time or another.

2. This blog belongs to one of the members of the Writer's Life group I belong to and the author is really a new, up and coming author now, having just had her first book published this month! Sandy's posts are often about her hectic life, getting her book published and now, the work involved in marketing it. But she also posts the "Word for the Day" in which she takes a word, often one from the "olde" English that shows up in her book and asks her readers to give an example of how to use this word in a sentence. It's a fun little game she has going there and one that some days will really leave the best wordsmith stumbling around, looking for a sentence in which to use her selected word of the day. While you're there, check out how to get a copy of Sandy's great new book too - Choices Meant For Gods - a great piece of fantasy fiction you can't help but enjoy!

3. My friend, Vic Grace, way, way up in British Columbia has a terrific blog full of information about not just her life out in the wilderness, but also her posts in which she will often research a topic on her mind and then, presents it in a fashion that makes it much more easily comprehended - religion, politics, wildlife, among other things - often appear in her writings and always gives one pause to sit and think.

4. From coaching a baseball team, to fighting fires and such in California, as well as being a talented cartoon artist, Gene Bach gives a very gentle touch to his approach to life -trials and triumphs - and intersperses much of his postings with good humor too. Listen to him explain and even show in glowing color too, some of his teaching methods for the baseball team he coaches (Never let 'em see you cry, Gene) or his stories about some of the situations he's encountered as a fire fighter to events in his life with his wife and daughters, Gene can put things across in a manner that you can not just relate to but understand and enjoy reading his point of view.

5. The last one I am putting in here today for a thinking award makes me think in terms of the absolutely absurd and funny side of a lot of things. DO NOT read his blog while eating or drinking ANYTHING or it can cause damage to your monitor or keyboard from spitting whatever you may have in your mouth or worse, you could find yourself choking from swallowing incorrectly too. This produce manager does put things in a way different light at times, for sure. But he also has a feature he does every Sunday in which he posts photos and information about various constellations in our sky that is a really terrific way to learn about astronomy, even if his title for these posts (Up Uranus) is a bit misleading, it's definitely very much a worth while read and educational. His humor often is a lot of double entendre, absurd, a bit off-color too at times, but even with that, he can lift the spirits with a good belly-buster laugh or just a little giggle and gives a reason to think about silly things that often we need to have along with the serious thinking of life.

Now, I need to tell you a bit about the "thinking blog" award and its origins. You need to go here to learn how this blogger came up with this "thinking blog" award. And reference this blog too in your post about the thinking blog label bestowed on you by me!

Truthfully, I would have liked to have put this award on ALL the blogs on my favorite blogs listings because each one of them makes me think but not all make me think in the same manner. Some do it with utmost seriousness, others with empathy, and yes, a few make me think that because of their humor, I can laugh and see things, think of things, in a completely different light perhaps for the rest of my day.

But perhaps sometime in the near future, I'll award the "thinking blog" award to another select five bloggers, wait a while, then give this prize to a few more and that way, eventually, work my way down my "favorites" list so each one gets an award for the way he or she made me think just for today or perhaps every day.

Enjoy. Now I need to go think about what to fix for supper and really think too about keeping myself motivated with my local history research stuff so I can someday soon, get it all finished and actually start writing about it!

Now that's going to require a whole lot of thinking!