Well Steemit, I have to say goodbye until the end of time. I wanted to write a quick shoutout post for a few deserving Steemit members before I took off.

You see Steemit, we are going camping until the apocalypse happens... erm... to watch the solar eclipse ;) Anyhoo, I won't be on here for a few days (returning Tuesday evening).

Image credit - Process print after a photograph of the 1871 eclipse - find the image on Wiki Commons here

We are heading up over the mountains into eastern Oregon to watch the eclipse from in the path of the totality. Local news is pretty much treating the eclipse as the apocalypse; Oregon is expected to more than double in population over the next few days with all the visitors flocking here to view the eclipse and there are dire predictions for traffic, etc. My mother-in-law is pretty sure that our little family is going to perish in the wilderness, she has somehow associated the eclipse with wildfires and thinks that once the sun goes out we are going to be engulfed in flames. I hope she is wrong!

Shoutout Part One - @juliank

I took @juliank up on his "30 day challenge" for content creators - all I had to do to participate in the contest (besides declaring my interest in the linked post) was to post original content daily and @juliank would upvote it every day that I kept my streak going. This was a great motivator for me to actually post daily and in the last two weeks that I have been posting daily I have seen my followers double from around 200 to around 400. Hey, waddaya know, posting original content regularly really works to grow a following! Who would have figured, right?

Anyway, many thanks to you for the motivation @juliank! I am going to break my streak here and drop out of the contest as I will be out of even cell phone range for this camping trip. I had vague plans to figure out post automation and create some posts that would publish daily while I was gone, but I did not get around to doing this. So this is where I bow out of the contest.

If you aren't already following @juliank, give him a follow - he is a very interesting guy and posts some great photography and interesting blogs. Cheers @juliank!

Shoutout Part Two - @sircork

If you are a part of the Minnow Support Network and have hung out in general chat at all in the PAL discord server you probably already know @sircork and his tireless efforts on behalf of MSP and minnows everywhere. @sircork, you, sir, are truly a gentleman and a scholar. A prince among men.

@sircork has thrown his name in the witness hat and I want to take this opportunity to endorse him as a terrific witness candidate. If you have extra votes, type @sircork in the box to vote for witnesses outside the top 50* - you are really going to be helping the entire Steemit community if you do this, @sircork has shown the devotion and inclination to really do some good here. Read more about @sircork and his witness candidacy here:
@sircork/please-consider-my-bid-to-become-a-recognized-steem-block-chain-witness

While you are at it, consider voting for the rest of the MSP (Minnow Support Project) witness slate led by our fearless leaders @aggroed and @ausbitbank. Find the whole MSP witness slate here: http://minnowsupportproject.org/leadership/

*Newbie Friendly Instructions - click on the menu icon (three horizontal lines up in the top left) and select "Vote for Witnesses". You will have to type @sircork in the box down below the witnesses in the top 50 like so:

Shoutout Part Three - @luzcypher and @pfunk / Steemit Open Mic Contest

I finally got off my butt and entered the Steemit Open Mic contest this week. I barely squeaked my entry in before the deadline, and then I spent a good chunk of yesterday attempting to listen to each of the Open Mic Week 46 entrants. I say "attempting"... because I just couldn't make it through all the entries. There are a lot of entries, and I was giving everyone an honest listen and comment - and this took a lot of time. This also gave me a whole new appreciation and respect for the hard work that @luzcypher and @pfunk do in running this contest. Just listening to every entry is a huge time commitment, let alone the logistics of tracking the entries, paying out the winners, etc. So this is a very well deserved shoutout to two hard working gentlemen - thanks guys!

Give those two a follow and remember to upvote the weekly contest post to support the contest. @luzcypher and @pfunk pay the winners out of their own wallets. Give them some love!

Shoutout Part Four - @oliverwaterman

Steemit, I am disappointed in you. It is absolutely criminal that @oliverwaterman has only 148 followers at the time of my writing. This man is a wizard on six strings and I could listen to him play guitar all day. Now I suppose that maybe some people honestly don't like classical music - but I challenge you to listen to his entry into the open mic contest this week and not be mesmerized. This, ladies and gentlemen, is true talent. If you are a curator of any stripe, you need to be following and upvoting Oliver's posts. That he could make a post like this and get six upvotes and a $.03 payout is unfathomable to me. The post I just linked to is already past the payout window. Can you help me make sure that his next posts outside of the Open Mic platform reach a wider audience?

Well that is it from me for a few days, Gnashster out!