Lori Haskell of Knoxville, TN is the winner of our very first blog contest. A $100 gift card is now hers. I’m sure Lori is grateful, but I have plenty to be grateful for too.

This contest could not be possible without all my readers – those who have been loyal since day one, those who just stopped by, and those who have fallen victim to information overload and have since moved on. Not even your Google Reader can help you stay on top of every awesome blog you’ve ever encountered.

I’ve been a State Farm policy holder for quite some time now. My agent, Josh Ellis is great. If you need car insurance here in Knoxville, go see Josh! He didn’t ask me to say this.

I want to make sure to thank Katie Hunckler of the Zócalo Group who connected with me to get the ball rolling with this.

That’s right, 21st Century Dad is doing our very first blog contest with a little help from State Farm Insurance. As a State Farm Insurance policyholder (my State Farm agent, Josh Ellis is awesome!) and a believer in having fun while staying safe, this is a natural fit for 21st Century Dad. Summer is almost over, and we’re all getting in our last hurrah before Labor Day.

What do you have a chance to win? A $100 gift card from Home Depot.

But first, the real meat of the post. As you know, I always try to bring real value in my content, and safety is important. None of my readers are candidates for the Darwin Awards. Summer is almost over, but the need to keep your family safe is never over.

Some of you may be planning one last road trip before school starts. Or you may be embarking on a road trip to drop off your child at college. Did you check craigslist for deals on microwaves, mini fridges and futons back in May? You’ll be out of luck now. May is the time to score those deals. College kids going home for the summer want a lighter haul, so that futon will be cheap or even free.

This blog’s life, and Twilli’s started in Florida. Summer safety tips apply year round. We used to enjoy poolside Christmas with 85 degree weather. Safety never goes out of style, and never becomes irrelevant.

Here are some additional tips from State Farm:

• Summer Driving Tips
• Summer Maintenance for you Home

The Prize

A $100 gift card from Home Depot

The Qualified Entry Process

• 1 entry: A comment sharing your favorite summer safety tip
• 1 entry: Liking 21st Century Dad’s Facebook page.
• 1 entry: A Tweet mentioning my blog and the contest (must be non-consecutive tweets but tweet as much as you want each day)
• 3 entries: A link back to this blog post and contest
• 5 entries: A guest post on 21stCenturyDad on family safety tips

The Deadline

Contest entries will be closed at 11:59:59 pm the day after Labor Day, September 6, 2011.

The Prize Delivery

The gift card will be delivered to any US address via USPS Priority Mail with Delivery Confirmation. The gift card is issued in $US. Excluding entrants from outside the US or where it is not practical to shop at Home Depot is not meant as a slight. It is a matter of pragmatism. Why enter to win something you have no use for?

The Winners

The winner will be selected at random since multiple entries are allowed. To ensure fairness, a handful of people closest to me are ineligible to win, but still welcome to promote the contest. They know who they are. Contest entries by anyone related to me by blood, marriage, or W2 form (employees of Guitar Center in Knoxville TN) will be disqualified. I don’t think there’s a way to game the system and manipulate entries, but if such a scheme is ferreted out, you will be disqualified.

Winner Notification

The winner will be notified by whichever means of contact provided. You will have 3 days to respond and claim your prize. Please check your junk/spam email folders. I have to know where to send you the prize.

The Prize Acceptance

If no response is given within 3 days of the prize notification, an alternate winner will be chosen by the same method.

Bad blogger! No link love for you!!! I’ve been hiding. You know you’ve neglected your blog if several WordPress updates have been released since your last post.

I have some good news to share. Life circumstances and the random acts of others in the blogosphere have brought me out of hiding. There are some new and exciting things on the horizon for 21st Century Dad. Just wait. Hang out. Add me to your RSS feed reader and you won’t miss a beat.

Despite my inactivity, I’ve been featured on a couple of blogs.

Beth at “Open Seven Days A Week. Closed Sundays” decided that I would be a good single dad to profile for Single Parents Day. Don’t let the pretty face and blonde hair fool you. She actually knows what she’s talking about and she is a gifted writer. This is a long-overdue shout-out. She did her little write-up about me back in March! Read all about it.

Once your blog gains some traction, you become interconnected with other bloggers. Through this interconnection, Chris Goforth tracked me down. He’s a Real Authentic Man. I am so tapped out for time to engage in yet another social networking site. I am ashamed to admit that I haven’t responded to his invitation to join Real Authentic Men. OK, so I’m already a member of one Ning site, and that’s the only sign-in I need, but do I just create a profile, post the obligatory profile pic and just pad his numbers? I feel more than just a twinge of guilt if I don’t participate. As if that wasn’t enough, my job has a social network for its employees.

You might know Chris as PapaRocks6 on Twitter. I was featured in his series on Real Authentic Men.

Today is Father’s Day, a celebration of fatherhood and a day to be the best dad you can be. Spend a little extra time with your children. Twilli is visiting her extended family in Oklahoma this week. Mom’s posting photos on Facebook and I can see that they’re having a great time.

Say hi to some of these great dads out there in the blogosphere. Most are dad bloggers, but some are bloggers who happen to be dads.

• Bobby Williams
• Buck Daddy
• Building Camelot
• Dad of Divas
• Dad Thing
• Dad’s Workbench
• Daddy Dazed
• Daddy’s Toolbox
• Discovering Dad
• DIY Father
• Frugal Dad
• Hubby, Daddy, Techie
• Joeprah
• Metro Dad
• Mocha Dad
• Planet Saturday
• Rice Daddies
• Steve Pavlina
• Strobist
• The Busy Dad Blog
• The Wisdom Journal

The frequency of postings has declined over the past year. Those of you who know me on Facebook and Twitter also know I am fairly active there. Longtime readers, or rather, the friends I’ve made while I was posting regularly, will know that I tend to put a lot of thought into my blog posts. For the regular news from my life, Facebook and Twitter have been my outlets. I’m sure the time I spend chatting with friends or leaving witty comments on people’s status updates could’ve been used to craft a dozen or so blog posts over the past year.

Guitar Center

After moving to Tennessee, I wasn’t very picky about job prospects. I knew I needed to get a job ASAP. I wasn’t really interested in working at a music store again, but I had experience and knowledge to do it. Guitar Center was the first place that offered me a job, and it turned out to be a much better place to work than I had initially imagined. I am in control of how much I earn. I have fun every day. I work with a great bunch of guys and gals. I have announced to upper management that Guitar Center is part of my long-term plans.

Being around musicians and people who love music has reawakened the desire to play again. This time around, I’m going to refresh my piano playing skills. The keyboard excites me now. Guitar doesn’t do it for me like it used to.

No More Amazon.com Goodies

Due to my employment at Guitar Center, my involvement with the Amazon Associates program would constitute a conflict of interest. Yes, Amazon.com sells musical instruments. Of course, I would much rather you buy from Guitar Center. I quietly terminated the Amazon goodness a while ago, but haven’t gotten around to announcing the end of a good run.

Final Thoughts for the Day

Most people probably stopped reading about 200 words ago. Put “Facebook” in the title of a blog post or mention social media, and it’s instant link-bait. If you’re still with me, that probably means you’re a stalker or immune to the rampant ADD in our society today.

This blog isn’t going away. It’s just become more like a quarterly newsletter than a blog. There is plenty in the archives for new dads. I still get a fair amount of traffic based on the strength of some of my posts.

I still schedule posts to go live at 8:07. 8/07 is Twilli’s birthday. 8:07pm in 24-hour format is 20:07. Twilli was born in 2007.