This is the end, beautiful friend.
Late next week 1000 Awesome Things will hit #1 and we’ll have finished four years counting down one awesome thing every weekday. So… like Luke Skywalker’s triumphant final battle against the Fish Monsters, the Jamaican bobsled team’s mighty last-second push to capture gold in ’88, and Milli Vanilli’s final sold-out show in Wembley Stadium, so too is my time writing about awesome things climaxing in one last blaze of glory.
Four years have gone by like that snap and now I’m forced to picture life without steaming burritos wrapped in paper towel on my keyboard, piercing migraines in the morning from staying up too late, and getting together with a group of friends around the world every day to talk about rusty see-saws, glue movies, and almost names.
It’s time to look back, smile, and say thanks …
To Mike Jones, for so many stories and ideas over the past four years. You’ll always be my Superman.
To Frank Warren of PostSecret, thank you for running the best blog out there and still finding time to help me along the way. You have contributed so much to the world and are a true inspiration.
To Drew Curtis of Fark.com, thank you for believing in old, dangerous playground equipment.
To wires, thank you for connecting my computer to people around the world. You turn classy, sophisticated thoughts into pixels and words — filling minds and connecting strangers. You ask for so little and give us so much, wires.
To readers and commenters who are the soul of the 1000 Awesome Things community, especially Freddo, jdurley, Laura, Bekah, Kathy, wendy, simone, lovethebadguy, trixierix, and galileo. I’ve read every single one of your comments and laughed so many times. I’ll see you at the Nutella bar at Freddo’s afterparty.
To the journalists who have written, spoken, and shared stories about 1000 Awesome Things, thank you for being Apostles of Awesome. Special thanks to Misty Harris, Nancy White, Roger Ashby, Marilyn Dennis, Darren Lamb, and Dina Pugliese.
To Louis Sacher, David Sedaris, and Bill Watterson, thank you for getting a kid excited about writing.
To nachos, thank you for being my dinner a couple hundred times, after I got home late from work and needed to write tomorrow’s awesome thing. I love you so much, nachos.
To Chad Upton, nobody has supported 1000 Awesome Things like you — from editing photos, submitting links, and sending ideas all hours of the day. You are a truly awesome friend. Thanks for saying yes to this blog.
To Chris Kim, you didn’t get to see this site win awards, score book deals, or get millions of hits. You just called me every couple days when I started the thing to tell me you liked it. Somehow that’s the most important thing of all.
Thanks to the many great teachers I’ve had over the years, especially Mr. Olson, Ms. Eales, Ajay Agrawal, Mike Wheeler, and André Perold. Special thanks to Mrs. Dorsman for pushing me out of my shell in third grade.
To Mom, Dad, Nina, Dee, and Leslie, thank you for your patience, ideas, and love through it all.
To everyone who has ever read, blogged, emailed, Spacebooked or Pintweeted any post from 1000 Awesome Things around the electronical intertubes, thank you sincerely for your support.
To WordPress, thank you so much for hosting my site from Day 1. You give people all over the world a voice. (To start your own free blog, just like I did, click here.)
Finally, thank you to you. Yes, you! I’m talking about you! You, the person staring at this computer. You, the person who just read the word poo. I mean you. Nobody else. You! Thank you so much … for reading this sentence. Thank you for giving those eyeballs to these fingertips and connecting our brains.
When we finally hit 1000 Awesome Things I know we’ll both look back, smile, and say thanks many times.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
AWESOME!
