Blogging: Okay, I'll play along...

Nancy and Leslie, Mexico bloggers whom I respect and follow regularly, nominated me for what's called The Versatile Blogger Award. A number of my blogging friends have been so nominated. One of these, Steve, sceptically accepted his nomination and made some interesting comments.

I know nothing about the award, except that I gather it was created as a tool for bloggers to network, get to know each other and maybe rack up more pageviews. The way it works, each nominee is supposed to tell seven things about themselves that readers don't know, and then nominate 15 favorite blogs for the award. Steve commented that it seems like a big chain letter, which is true.

I am not much of a math whiz, but it appears to me that if everyone nominated did indeed in turn nominate 15 blogs, with everyone following the rules it would only take a handful of generations to have nominated every blog in the 'sphere. Fifteen to the seventh power is something like 38 billion. That's a whole bunch of versatile blogs for each and every individual on Earth.

But that aside, it seems interesting, these bloggers are my friends and I am willing to give it a go. Despite the fact that I blog about my experiences, I haven't ever intended to make this blog about "me." But I am curious. I'll play along...

1. Once I hung out in a hotel room with '60's acid guru Timothy Leary ("turn on, tune in and drop out") and talked with him for about an hour. What I remember of his words seems even more appropriate now than it did then: "We are dealing with the best-educated generation in history. But they've got a brain dressed up with nowhere to go."

2. I worked as an extra in The Godfather, Part 2. I achieved my tiny sliver of fame -- a blurry second on screen, not fifteen minutes -- (Warhol exaggerated more than once), when I was seventeen years old. The most interesting part of that three-day gig actually was in makeup on the first day, where I sat in a chair next to Pacino while we both got our hair styled.

3. While living among native people in Alaska's arctic, I regularly ate caribou, seal and whale meat they shared with me.

4. I was born in a log cabin...well, almost. My family lived in a small log home when I was born, in Ketchikan, Alaska, but actually I gasped my first breaths in the General Hospital. Later when I was running for treasurer of the student council in third grade, my father (a PR man) suggested I begin my campaign speech by telling my fellow students I was born in a log cabin (just like Abe Lincoln). Although I did not turn out to be student council material, the myth has stuck with me ever since.

5. Summer volunteer work in rural Colombia changed my life forever when I was 16.

6. There is a file on me somewhere deep in the musty archives of the former-Soviet KGB.

7. Contrary to the advice I give to everyone who asks me about buying a house in Mérida ("rent for at least six months"), I bought my house here on my very first visit, after a total of about two weeks in the city.

Now for the difficult part. There are many, many good blogs out there and it's hard to pick and choose. Besides that, a number of my favorite blogs already have been nominated for The Versatile Blogger Award. So I  am stealing an idea from Theresa, who seems to share many of my feelings about this deal. I am wiggling out of making individual nominations. I believe that all of my friends from the Latin American Bloggers Conference deserve The Versatile Blogger nomination.