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There is way too much going on in my gray matter this week, as I’ve been preoccupied with some business stuff trying to make our product launch go smoothly. So, I have just a couple of quick things for today’s post.

Redesign, Redux

Hopefully you’ve noticed that I’ve completed the second stage of the site redesign complete with a logo and header. I’m very excited about this development, as it was a lot of fun for me to tinker around with code to get the old blog where it is today. However, since I have absolutely no creative bone in my body I had to call in reinforcements.

On the recommendation of a friend I opened up a design competition on crowdSPRING.com. I absolutely love crowdsourcing as a business model, so I was eager to give it a go. Two weeks ago I offered up some prize money and waited for the design concepts to roll in. My project details were admittedly short on guidance due to that whole lack of a creative bone thing I mentioned, which got me a little discouraged after the first few concept submissions fell flat with me.

Finally, with about two days left to go in the contest I received the winning entry. I knew almost immediately that nothing else was going to beat it. The logo was the first thing submitted and I loved its clean look and simplicity. When I asked the creative to provide me with an example of a header using the logo the contest might as well have been over. In any event, the process was great and I love the result. I hope you all do too.

Going to Press

I’ve been thinking about ways to celebrate my first blogaversary, which isn’t until November 18th. You’re probably wondering why I’m worrying about it now, more than three months away, but that is just my planner nature.

I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but I’ve been writing a guest post series over at Building Camelot called ‘How to Cook the Meal and Keep the Girl‘. When Tyler opened his blog up to guest writers for the summer I thought a series about some of the culinary things I do for my wife would fit with the marriage and relationship aspect of his blog. Working on this guest post series has rekindled my desire to write a cookbook. It is something I’ve thought about and toyed around with ever since I started experimenting in the kitchen.

Therefore, I’ve decided to write and release a free eBook on my one year blogaversary to be titled ‘In the RMDM Kitchen’. I’ll be relying on many of the RMDM Kitchen posts here on the blog, as well as a few other things I haven’t posted here before. Namely, my super secret BBQ sauce and Ultimate BBQ rub recipes.

I’m currently piecing together the contents of the eBook using fastpencil and, now that I’ve put the idea out there, I know the pressure will be on me to actually do what I’m planning. If you’re interested in the eBook, then I hope you will consider becoming a fan of RMDM on Facebook where I will be shamelessly self promoting its launch.

Under the Microscope

As if burning the candle at both ends wasn’t enough, I’m now creating new ends so I can light those too.  On Tuesday night I got word that I was chosen to be the Charlotte Fatherhood Examiner over at Examiner.com.  I don’t know what the addition of this gig means for my blog in terms of keeping up with all the different memes I’m involved with, but Fatherhood Friday is very important to me and I appreciate each and every one of you that come by to read my ramblings, even if I can be lax in responding to your comments.

That is all from my neck of the blogiverse. I wish you all a Happy Fatherhood Friday and look forward to reading your posts!