When some wild-eyed, eight-foot-tall maniac grabs your neck, taps the back of your favorite head up against the barroom wall, and he looks ya crooked in the eye and asks you if ya paid your dues, well you just stare that big sucker right back in the eye, and you remember what ol' Jack Burton always says at a time like that: "Have ya paid your dues, Jack?" "Yes Sir, the check is in the mail."
…Big Trouble in Little China
Although I've paid my dues, time after time, I still have dues to pay. Everyone does. We all owe something to someone for being where we are now. Whether it's our lives or our successes, we owe.
Today, I will attempt to pay a small fraction of my dues.
Paying My Dues
Steve at Asian Ramblings called me a busy beaver and linked to my blog 3 times in that post. I really appreciate it. You should check out his post about keeping a symbolic door open. I'm in exactly the same position. The difference is that he's in China while I'm in the Philippines.
Tony, that crazy guy from Modern Gent sends me stuff and I think the latest item is still top secret because I don't see it on the site. A Google search turns up nothing relevant. I'm testing it right now and I'll write about it when he gives me the green light.
Gary Jones, the mastermind at BlueFur.com has linked to my blog 5 times, going back to July of 2007, and I haven't linked to his blog even once. Take a look at the two plugin tutorials: WordPress Plugin Tutorial - Hello World and WordPress Plugin Tutorial - Hello World Continue (I think he forgot an "s" at the end there.) I look forward to more articles like these.
Costa Fong was having troubles with keeping a sharp focus at Blog Gigs for a while. As one of my supporters, it's only fair that I give him some support as well. I'll be dedicating an entire article to him in the next few days — unless senility kicks in and I forget about it.
Ellie, the ultimate geek girl, is also one of my supporters. She's a good writer, as evidenced by her software pack article. She's been having some problems too, and I'll dedicate an article to her as well.
Have you paid YOUR dues?
I could go on and on and list hundreds, or even thousands, of people that I've been in contact with at one time or another. I prefer to surreptitiously embed links within posts, but I sometimes forget to do it even when the opportunity arises. I guess it's all in the reflexes.
What about you? Are you doing what you can to help others and pay your dues? Is the check in the mail?
(Image source: Grant Gould via Google Image Search.)
