Ever since I was a little kid my Mom got into the habit of gently reminding me after a birthday or a holiday to always make sure that I had thanked everyone who had given me a present.

I am not sure if all mothers have that habit but she was very diligent about ensuring that I personally acknowledged anyone either in person or in writing shortly thereafter.

This practice of hers has continued into my adulthood and no matter what age I have reached, Mom still nags, er...I mean casually reminds me, to say thank you to all of those who gave me a gift and this Christmas was no exception.

I usually just laugh it off when she asks "I hope you remembered to thank so and so..." and I always tell her that of course I thanked them, I mean after all I am a grown man and not a child.

Mom always responds with the same line of "You will always be my child and I will always remind you because I know you forget these kind of things and manners are so important."

Well this year I think Mom was actually correct, although I would never tell her that little fact, as I did forget to thank someone for a very nice and unexpected Christmas gift.

Over the Christmas season one of the traffic exchanges that I use called Blog Explosion, held a contest awarding cash prizes each day to some lucky person who was surfing their members sites, and on December 18th I was that lucky person!

I won $50.00 for just sitting in front of my PC doing very little (which BTW, I am quite good at) from the good folks at Blog Explosion.
( here is the proof for those readers who may doubt me:  December 18th Winner )

Anyway I had meant to publicly thank Jeff and his staff from Blog Explosion earlier than now, but the holidays caught up with me and I forgot until last week when Mom gave me her annual "reminder".

So to make it official "Thanks Jeff and Blog Explosion" you guys are great ! (just don't tell my Mother I forgot or I'll never hear the end of it!)

I also wanted to take this opportunity to voice my personal opinion on some very negative postings that I have encountered recently in surfing the net in regards to Blog Explosion.

I will not bother posting the url's of these postings as I do not wish to promote these types of biased sites in any way.

As a rule I would never comment on such inconsequential tripe as I am a firm believer that everyone should be allowed to voice their opinions in any forum in which they see fit and especially since I do not know (nor do I care to, as I am not even mildly interested in) the circumstances surrounding such negativity.

All I can and will do is give you MY personal opinion of Blog Explosion and the staff which support it, as I am a believer in equal time.

I have been a member now of Blog Explosion for over one year and have found it to be one of the few sites that actually does increase my blog traffic on a regular basis and has resulted in giving me numerous repeat visitors. I have also had the opportunity of finding a large number of sites that I visit regularly which I would definitely have not encountered had I not seen them through Blog Explosion.

I have my site listed in a number of different traffic exchanges and Blog Explosion is by far the number one exchange for both getting my blog viewed by others and allowing me to see new and interesting blogs.

They are continually adding new features and fine tuning existing ones which keeps their service both fresh and always ahead of the competition. In fact, I was so impressed by them that I have had their banner on my site from day one and everyone who visits this site on a regular basis will know that I rarely take the time or effort to promote anything!

I have also found their customer service to be excellent in all of the dealings I have had with Jeff and all his staff.

Being in the IT business myself I am extremely fastidious about websites. If I encounter a bug (even the small ones) I will open up a ticket and have had the occasion of opening up a couple of trouble tickets with Blog Explosion.

The results were a very quick, courteous and professional response in dealing with and also correcting the issues I had raised.

Overall, I would rate Blog Explosion as an excellent traffic exchange service and would highly recommend it to anyone who is asking.


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I mean any site that can facilitate in getting repeat visitors to my blog on a regular basis must be pretty damn good if you have ever read the poorly structured drivel that I endeavour to put out on a weekly basis.

And that's it, that is my opinion on the issue. My equal time is now up (and undoubtedly so is your patience for this week!)