HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, BLOG BABY

One of the funniest things for me one month to the day into this sweeps quest is that I thought I was going to be able to blog about every sweeps I entered, if not contemporaneously, at least within a day or two. Well, I don’t think so. I’ve already let one massive sweeps close with nary an entry, the $50,000 “See the World” sweeps that concierge.com was running through April 3, as well as several others, like this one to Scotland, not that silly Date a Hot Scot one that closed March 31, but a rather elegant sweeps whereby the winner gets to select from a menu of three themed itineraries, one art and architecture, one ancestral, one food and wine, nine-day trips each. Lovely! I entered that on March 23.

Oh, and here’s another one I never got around to mentioning: a weekend spa getaway for one lucky mom sponsored by Lifetime’s Cheerleader Nation. I entered this on March 17, and suffering succotash, even wrote “luck of the Irish” in my notes. I didn’t even know what Cheerleader Nation was until about 11:17 p.m. ET last evening, when I looked it up on the Internet. It’s some cornball TV show about cheerleaders and their moms. I don’t have cable, so I have an excuse for not knowing what it was. Oh, and after I postulated two days ago that sweeps could not render ineligible prospective entrants based on marital or parental status, etc., this sweeps, which closed on April 5, stated outright that it was for moms only. Well, my stars. Or my pom-poms. They could have restricted it to moms who are former cheerleaders.

Here’s one I entered last evening: a trip for two to Costa Rica, without air. Now, the sponsor, Backroads, is an adventure outfitter, one that promises active vacations taken at your own pace, but still, I would have to get in shape for all that hammock hopping, because that’s about as rigorous a pace I could stand right now, though I suppose I could work up to a stroll, and then, maybe if I did really well, a power stroll. This one is interesting in that there are no official rules, a first for this sweepstress. Details below in my spiffy custom-designed Entry Template.

Otherwise, I am still finding my way with this. For instance, I am undecided about how much I want to divulge about my son. I’ve mentioned his age and some of his affinities (soccer, green beer) and his snakes’ names, but not his name. Oh, and he blogs, that’s right, My Son the Blogger, but I hesitate to link his blog to my blog, because then you would know his name. And you might find his blog more entertaining than my blog, and then what would I do?

I also find myself yo-yo-ing between sharing and withholding. I am finding it easier to write about the past, trips taken and not taken, than it is to expound upon the present. Flights of fantasy, about winning a sweeps, are a cakewalk, too. I privately describe the bad luck that inspired me to start entering travel sweeps as My 3-D Bad Luck, the three D’s being death, divorce and, well, I’m not ready to divulge the third D. So, it’s so yo-yo. I’m on the fence. Plus, and this is secondary, but sometimes secondary impulses are more revealing than primary impulses, that omission creates a little dramatic tension there, doesn’t it? Perhaps it leaves people wondering. Perhaps the third “D” stands for “disfigurement,” the result of an accident. Or maybe it stands for “deprogram,” maybe I’m coming out of a wicked cult experience. Then again, perhaps it stands for drilling, as in I need a lot of dental work. Which might sound boring, but I go to a dentist who once instructed me to “open wild.”

Bottom line to all of the above, I don’t want to come off like a wha-wha-wha type, because that’s what getting too detailed about certain things might sound like, wha wha wha; despite some unfortunate turns of events, I still have it pretty darn good.

Anyway, it’s been one month. One month ago, I did not know there were so many online travel sweeps, I did not know diddle dee squat about how to upload a photograph onto a blog, I did not know how to format a hyperlink (until this week -- ergo all the cut-and-pasted URLs, in all their gunkiness, in earlier posts), I did not know that Google ads were the lunacy that they are*, I did not know visitors to a site actually had to click on Google ads for the publisher to earn something from them. (Hint, hint. Go, Team Click!)

*For the uninitiated: Google ads home in to your web pages based on content. Sometimes that makes for some sidebar mischief. My favorite Google ads pairing on my blog so far: in one entry, from March 10, I mention an incident involving a plane on which I was a passenger making a dramatic descent to Shannon, to refuel; the Google ads that showed up were for flight training schools. How reassuringly associative for someone who already hates to fly.

Go for it.

FWIW: I found this one by Googling “Win a trip to Costa Rica 2006.” Isn’t that brilliant?

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COSTA RICA

DEADLINE: April 30, 2006
TO ENTER, CLICK HERE: http://tinyurl.com/zxeok
SPONSOR: Backroads
THE DIGS: TBD
ARV (APPROXIMATE RETAIL VALUE): $3,996 - $5,396
MY PERSONAL ENTRY: April 6, 2006
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