Friday, December 24, 2010

Ton Up! Sto Lat! Centurian! Cien! Hundert! Cem! Honderd! Sata! сто! εκατό

One Hundred! One Hundred, I made a hundred posts,
One Hundred! One Hundred, all are different boasts.
One Hundred! One Hundred, from cities to coasts,
One Hundred! One Hundred, alas none about goats.
One Hundred! One Hundred, raise your glass for toasts
One Hundred! One Hundred, but 99 are electronic ghosts.

Ton Up! Sto Lat! Centurian! Cien! Hundert! Cem! Honderd! Sata! сто! εκατό!

No matter how you say it, it seems pretty insignificant. Just three numbers two of which actually mean nothing, 0. So why am I excited? Well many reasons. I really never thought that I would write anything after leaving school, even there I didn't do English in my final year. However, since moving to Poland, and living with and then marrying, a fabulously inspirational woman, I now feel the need to write, draw, bake, cook, roast, boil, concoct, preserve things whether it be food stuffs and ideas.

I constantly bubble over with thoughts, I am always writing silly things down that make me laugh or texting them to Marta to make her giggle at work. When it comes down to achieving the goals or ideas I had, I just seem to lack the time/money/ability to make them all come true.

I am hoping for Daddy Warbucks for Christmas, but I am guessing he won't be coming to Sokolka purely due to the distance from airports. I have created some OK stories this year, there is "The Grimlaut", and "Jack Frost" and I am probably 3/4 the way through "The Sound of Apples". So it has been fun, I have also taken many many photos. The other love, the Canon 5D MkII, has been getting a work out although it has been sheepish of the snow lately. However, the photos is what brings me to this post. The winners of the competition for the best photo I took in 2010. From a grand total of 54 photos, the winners are below.

"Nuclear Leaves" was only a slight winner over the second place, but it won none the less.
As close as it was in the Black and White the colour was certainly no run away. Even if the "Night Lavender" was chosen by 47% of the total voters, so it would nearly have won a regional election in Poland!

There were over 420 votes cast between both series of photos. So thank you to all those who took the time to vote, it means a great deal to me. I am thinking of maybe one day to having an exhibition, and you are all invited to it! Yay! Even if the voting public came from 18 countries in Poland, Australia, Germany, USA, England, Mexico, Spain, Guatemala, Wales, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Canada, Iceland, New Zealand, Chile, Holland and Switzerland.

OK, so the most important thing this 100th Post will tell us is the winner of the prize for voting for your favourite photos. So instead of just one, I have decided to draw two one for each series. Both winners were each picked at random by people who didn't even know what they were choosing for! So it was completely impartial.

The winner of the colour is........ Kinga from our Krakow Konnections
The winner of the B & W is........ Ela from Warsaw

So because we had two Polish people as winners, I then decided to draw one person who voted in both categories out of a hat.

The overall winner was.......... Margie from England!

So now the challenge is you all need to contact me via email with your address! This way I can send you your prize, so just email by clicking on my big ugly face on the left of the screen and there is an email link there.

I hope everyone has a fabulous Christmas and an even better 2011, this year has been fabulous for me, I got married to the most amazing woman, I have travelled to Australia, Czech Republic, Holland, Belgium, seen one of my brothers married in Holland and unfortunately missed the other in Acapulco later that month, sorry Flavio. I really hope you all can follow your dreams and passions as life is allowing me to.

For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson, American Poet, Lecturer and Essayist, 1803-1882


“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

Winston Churchill, British Orator, Author and Prime Minister. 1874-1965


So next year I am planning to try to continue being happy and to look for the opportunity, I hope you can too.

Thanks for reading! Don't forget to follow me by clicking on the follow icon on the left too.

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