A peace offering. How could be mad at these faces?

Wow, it has been quite a while hasn’t it? Really, 5+ months since my last post? A lot can happen in 6 months huh? But is 6 months really that long? I know a ton of things that can’t get accomplished in less than 6 months, let’s see: you can’t obtain a college degree in 5 months, you can’t walk from New York to California in less than 6 months, and apparently you can’t pass a bill in Congress in less than 5 months. So you see 6 months really isn’t a long time to stop blogging, based on the previous examples, some things of far lesser extent take much longer!

Ah, who am I kidding? Listen folks, I’m sorry. 6 months is a long time, hell, 1 month is a long time; I packed up my bags and left without so much as a “Dear John” letter. It wasn’t intentional, I promise, it just kind of happened. I got sick for the 12th time in like 2 months, work got really hectic, and next thing you know 6 months have passed and now I’m sitting here writing this apology post.

While I’m in apology mode, there are a few bloggers that I need to send a heartfelt sorry to as well. When I started blogging, I found a lot of interesting parenting blogs and became somewhat of a regular on a few of them: The Life of a Father of Five, Suburban Scrawl, and Raleigh Daddy 3.0, to name a few. But once my blogging efforts faded into the abyss of “never blog again land” I started feeling somewhat ashamed and began removing myself from the blogs that I visited regularly as they served as a reminder of my failure. Even though I couldn’t hack it, I should have still supported you guys and I’m sorry for that.

Well, now that that’s out of the way, let’s move on to the good stuff shall we? Well first off, I’d like to say I’m BAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCKKKKKKKK, man it feels so good to be writing again. It kind of feels like being in a relationship where you know you screwed up, but you’re afraid to apologize and give it another try; but once you do, and all is forgiven, all of those great feelings come rushing back. Well that’s where I’m at right now, and I’m gonna try my best to ride this high for as long as I can!

Without further ado, let’s get this show on the road!!!

Daddy’s Fish Bowl’s 1st official post of 2010 The Boy in the Window

Guess what folks; I got interviewed about this blog! How cool is that?  I think it’s awesome.  The good folks over at Black Unlimited contacted me and expressed their fondness for Daddy’s Fish Bowl and requested the opportunity to ask me a few questions about the blog.  Well you know me, being the media whore that I am, I couldn’t resist.  It was a fun experience and I’m very thankful for the opportunity to participate.  I can already see the jealousy in Oprah’s eyes because she didn’t get this exclusive interview! I foresee her kicking herself for many moons to come about missing this opportunity, lol. 

Well, here’s the link to the interview, I hope you enjoy!  Blog Spotlight – Daddy’s Fish Bowl

While you’re there, please feel free to checkout all of the other great content that the site has to offer.  They have feature interviews with photographers, designers, and even film makers.  There’s something for everyone so enjoy.

So did you guys miss me? I know, it’s only been 3 days, but still, that seems like an eternity to me; as you know, bloggers don’t get any paid vacation. Well, even if you didn’t miss me, I sure missed you. Writing is something that I really enjoy doing & what can be better than writing about your family? I mean seriously, doing something that you enjoy (writing) and it’s about something you enjoy (family), it doesn’t get much better than that.

As most of you probably know, Google Adsense and I had a bit of a falling out last Friday. If you’re not aware, then you should follow me on Twitter here, as I tweeted extensively about my discontent and anger with the whole Adsense program. Those bastards disabled my account for what they deemed “invalid clicks”. I find it quite funny that these “invalid clicks” arose as soon as I was about to break the $100 payout point. So basically the way that I see it, google received an entire month of free advertising on my site & right as it came time to pay up, BOOM they cut me off.

Well after this unfortunate setback to Daddy’s Fish Bowl, I was honestly ready to throw in the towel. But the kind words of my Facebook & Twitter friends, as well as the possibility of other revenue sources pulled me thru and brought me back to the keyboard. As I said before, I do enjoy writing & writing about my family is a bonus; but doing it without the possibility of any compensation was something that did not rate high on my priority list. I’m not sure if you guys are aware, but writing these blog posts take a considerable amount of time. Time that could be spent with my family or towards advancing my “Packaging Science” career. So regardless of how much I love doing this, it has to be beneficial to those I care for, otherwise I’m just cheating them by spending valuable time doing something that I love instead of spending it with them (by the way, I’m writing this post after midnight, past my bedtime).

Which is why I’d like to send a big fat “screw you” out to google (this probably isn’t going to help with my Adsense appeal) and announce that a new ad company is now sponsoring Daddy’s Fish Bowl! I hope you enjoy and are able to find something useful from the content that they provide. Also, I’ve added a “donate button”. What exactly are you donating to? Probably my alcohol supply! You’ve seen the content of this site, and if you think that I can handle the mayhem of this household without a drink at the end of the night, then you are sadly mistaken! So go ahead, make a donation to the “Keep Keith Sane” fund!

Also, starting next Tuesday, Ty & Tre’s Toy Reviews will be returning.  They have quite of bit of information to share with you guys regarding their favorite play things, so I hope you are ready to hear all about it.  Something new to the site, which will be starting next week is the “Ask A Dad” section.  This new section will be designed to allow you, the reader to ask a Dad any questions that you’d like the answers too.  Whether it be parenting advice, toy suggestions, or what color socks I’m wearing today, send the questions in and it’ll be featured in this section. 

As always, please leave your comments, thoughts and suggestions on way that I can make this site better for you, the reader. Let me know if there are things I’m doing that don’t work for you, or if there are things that I’m not doing, which I should be.

So I’ve made a few changes around the site recently and want to get your feedback on them, as well as how things are going in general.  Read on to find out what’s new and share you thoughts, concerns, questions, etc.

First I’d like to send a HUGE thanks to Omarvelous from Kool Whips!  He’s the man behind the scenes.  Seeing as how I’m a horrible programmer, wait to be a horrible programmer you’d actually have to know a little code and be able to, um, program.  With that in mind, seeing as how I’m not a programmer at all, setting up this site was an extremely difficult task and Omarvelous stepped up and definitely helped me out.  He’s made so many changes, many that go unnoticed but are essential to the functionality of this blog.  Without him, I wouldn’t be here to provide your daily dose of wacky kid experiences, so show you’re appreciation and head on over to Kool Whips and explore.  He built Kool Whips from the ground up and it’s on track to become the next big social media outlet.  Get in early!

Next up, we have a brand spanking new theme song for Daddy’s Fish Bowl.  How cool is that?  My buddy over at Romelle Beats sampled the family’s voices from a few of the youtube vids and produced the track that you see in the sidebar to the right.  Give it a listen, it’s quite funny and fits right into the theme of the site.  Great job Romelle, definitely appreciate it!  Check out his site, it features a nice variety of tracks produced by Romelle himself; they are available for purchase so tell him Daddy’s Fish Bowl sent you to receive an awesome discount.  Well I made that last part up, but tell him anyway.

Another addition is the placement of advertising on the site.  Those little squares you see below posts are ads meant to sell things.  These aren’t my things that are being sold, but hopefully you’ll see something interesting & relevant.

Lastly, I’ve implemented an email system to notify you guys when someone has replied to one of your comments.  I find a lot of times that when I leave comments on a blog, I sometimes forget to go back and check to see if anyone has responded or if any additional comments have been left.  I think this is a nice addition and will help to grow the site’s community.

That’s all for now, let me know what you think.  Do you like the design? Are there things you would change?  Any suggestions for additions?  What do you think of the theme song?  Will emails notifying you of replies be a nuance?  What do you think of the length of the posts, are they too long, too short, just right?  Are there certain topics you’d like me to touch on?  Do you even care?  Lol, this is the type of feedback I’d like to get from you guys, because at the end of the day, I do it for you so I want to make sure you’re happy.

Don’t forget to check out today’s post: Attack of the 21lb Baby