This website has been a labor of… well… confusion. My personal writing started over on a blogspot account while chrisilluminati.com served as just an online resume of articles. A few months ago, while discussing how lazy I’d become about updating the blog and keeping this website fresh, a friend asked “why don’t you make the chrisilluminati.com your blog instead of having a million different online homes.”

I had no answer.

I made the switch. In no time I became incredibly good at letting this website sit dormant as well. If anything, I am consistent. And at least it was only one place with my name in the URL that was incredibly stale and dated.

Then I read 279 days to Overnight Success by Chris Guillebeau. Imagine, something besides a comic book!    It triggered a maelstrom of ideas this blog; things I’d never tried, things I’d never thought of and things I wanted to accomplish but didn’t have the guts. It was life/blog changing. (In case you can’t tell, I highly recommend that website.)

The change has been amazing. I don’t want it to stop. The writing I do for this blog is my favorite of all my writing gigs. It’s personal. It’s my story. It’s fun letting people in on the moments, good, bad and toilet breaking, that happen in my life. I think I stopped because I thought “who the hell cares about reading this stuff.” When I stopped updating I found out it was many more people than I realized.

So to celebrate the relaunch of this blog, I decided to hold a contest. As a way to thank all the readers who stuck with me through the lean times (AKA-funny picture phase) and to meet some new friends along the way.

It’s pretty simple. How simple? Three steps. That is nine less than the typical recovery program.

Step 1- Sign up to receive Great Moments in Christory by email by clicking here.

Step 2- Forward the first email update you receive to my email address (cilluminati@gmail.com) with the subject line “I subscribed to Christory now enter me in the damn contest!” Your name and email will automatically be entered into the grand prize drawing.

Step 3- Increase your chances to win. Do you have friends, family or coworkers that you always send Christory links to? (You do? Oh, you are a peach!) Get them to subscribe to Christory by following Step 1. Tell them to forward the first email update they receive to me with the subject line “_______ told me to subscribe to Christory now enter both our names in the damn contest!” Not only will they be entered into the Grand Prize drawing but now your name will go into the drawing AGAIN. Giving you a double shot of winning. The more people you get to subscribe the more times your name goes into the drawing.

So what is the Grand Prize? A firm handshake and all the crème brulée you can fit in your pockets. You wish. How about a $50 gift card from Amazon.com? You can use it on anything! That’s right, Amazon carries anythings! They are adorable. There is also a prize for the person that gets the most people to subscribe. That person will receive a $25 Amazon Gift Card.

Contest starts today and runs until Sunday May, 31st. Winners will be announced Monday June 1st.

Expose your friends, family and coworkers to my idiocy. They will thank you.

Fine, they won’t, but one of you could get a prize for the effort.