Are You Kamphey Approved?

To satiate your thrist for blogs of adventure go ahead and check out former Person of the Day Ashlee Valdes’ blog about her current adventure in Switzerland and South Africa as a Nanny.

Her introduction is (un)intentional humor at its best.

a) I am not naturally inclined towards children
b) My child rearing skills are limited to an undergraduate course in applied behavioral psychology and the dog whisperer.
c) I have a masters degree in international business administration.

Thus began her travels to Switzerland to nanny for her Sister and then to South Africa where the family has a winter home.  As she says it: An overeducated underqualified American jets off to Switzerland and South Africa for a jaunt as a nanny after finishing her master’s degree in international business.

Jason Santa Maria

Let’s keep the week’s Santa theme rolling by taking a small tangent. Jason Santa Maris is a graphic designer in NYC and has a rather great website. The site is not just great in form but has a lot of creative and fun content. There’s Best Band Name Ever, Daily Photography, and Oddities & Diversions on the sidebar of the main page.

SantasJournal.com

The last post to this blog was on May 19th 2007 but it has some dandy stuff going on.  In the About section you can listen to Santa’s Bio spoken by SANTA!

The newest posts don’t have audio but many of the posts do and the podcasts definitely do.

Some samples:

As you heard in my speech to all the elves last week, I have been notified of a security risk in the North Pole that requires urgent attention. The NPSF (North Pole Snowball Forces) have submitted a report detailing the security threat. Since it has a direct impact on all of you, I’ve decided to share it right here.

Santa blogs about a lot of different things including Earth Day:

At the North Pole, we make every effort possible to make sure that we are not hurting the planet. For example, we all make sure to turn off all lights when we are not using them and we save water by taking quick 5-minute showers.

For one post an elf asked kids reading the blog to write what they got for christmas:

thank you santa for the starwars toys they were cool, I really enjoyed playing with them as soom as I unwrapped them, I wasn’t suprised cause that’s what I asked for and I knew you wouldn’t let me down. Also my brother Riley would like to say thank you for all the stuff you brought him, he was really excited cause he’s only four, but I know we both had trouble sleeping that night. Cause we couldn’t hardly wait for you to come, Thanks for everything Santa, Love Patrick & Riley

SantaSpeaking.com

Keeping up with this week’s Santa theme here’s a nifty way to forgo the visit to see Santa in a Mall or a department store.

 SantaSpeaking.com offers you live personalized phone calls from the REAL Santa Claus, in the comfort of your own home

The Claus Chronicles

(All this week I will be honoring the big guy.   Not Barry White but Santa Claus.  He’s ramping up production and blogging about it.  So each day this week I will be giving you all a link to a Santa Blog.)

Today is a fairly simple blog by the man himself.  Don’t worry they will get far far more interesting this week.   Over at Claus Chronicles there are Periodic Updates From North Pole, Inc. Chairman & CEO Santa Claus.

We find out that Santa watches Survivor: China and there’s a few very nice gems like:

The North Pole legal teams says I am never supposed to release Naughty/Nice information…

my picks for this year’s bowl season.  (Not the Holiday bowl of chips but really the college football bowls.  How Santa has time to watch College Football is beyond me.)

It was a good Sunday overall. My run was a little slow… I didn’t run far given the fatigue and lack of sleep. But I downed a whole lot of Christmas Blend coffee before church. The last thing I need is the papparazzi to get a picture of me nodding off in church.

“Santa Claus”

How many Santas are there? ONE! How many North Poles are there? A LOT! To end this week of far out places we go to the North Pole. Not just any North Pole will do. This is an ever expanding list of North Poles online. I’ve also found a lot of Santas online.

There’s NorthPole.com where you can experience a traditional Christmas.

And TheNorthPole.com where Santa Blogs and Wally Amos promotes reading.

And NorthPoleInc.us which is said to be The Onion meets Mr. Freeze.

And NorthPole.net where rudolph can read and write and has a message for you

And The-North-Pole.com the Christmas place for kids.

And Santa.com where WWW stands for World Peace, Wii, and Webkinz.

And Santa.net with Santa’s Summer vacation “videos.”

And Santa.us which is just a catalog of catalogs of stuff.

And SantaClaus.com where Santa is always celebrating Christmas.

And TheSantaClaus.com with MrsClaus’ photo album.

And Claus.com the merriest place in cyberspace.

And SaintNicholas.com which for some reason only says Santa relocated to Florida.

And StNicholasCenter.org discovering the truth about Santa Claus.

And SantaClausOnline.com which has a Letter of the Day.

And Santarchy.com which one time resulted in a riot in New Zealand.

And SantaCon.com which was in Chicago on December 8th and has pictures!

And NoradSanta.org tracks Santa.

And Earth.Google.com/Santa/ also tracks Santa.

And EmailSanta.com where you can Email Santa.

And Myspace.com/SantaClaus which is not Santa Claus at all but 21 year old Marcus.

And SantasVillage.com which is a theme park high in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

And SantasLand.com which is a theme park in Vermont.

And SantasLandnc.com which is a theme park in North Carolina.

And SantaLandTexas.com which is a drive thru theme park in Texas.

And HolidayWorld.com which is a theme park and water park in Indiana.

And VisitSantas.com which is a theme park in Arizona.

And Santas-Colo.com which is a theme park in Colorado.

And NorthPoleNY.com which is Santa’s Workshop, an Amusement park in New York.

And SantasVillage.net which is a community about all the Santa’s Villages in the country.

And SantaLand.com which was the first Christmas website on the internet.

And SantaLady.com where you can get a custom Santa doll.

And SantaMonica.com which is a city that has nothing to do with Santa Claus nor a woman named Monica dressed as Santa.

Michael Cook

This week’s theme has developed into “Far Out Places.” Today we venture not far away but rather down. Down and around to “immerse oneself in stormwater sewers and utility tunnels and abandoed inudstry, about tapping into the worlds that are embedded in our urban environment yet are decidedly removed from the collective experience of civilized life.”

That is the Vanishing Point.

Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)

In honor of far out places, Robert and Jerry are the authors and editors of Astronomy Picture of the Day.  ” Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.” Aren’t you fascinated yet?  I sure am.    You can go back through the archive and look at all the pictures of the day or you can just start to read it each day from now on.  If you don’t think you would be into this type of thing then this is the perfect website to start going to.   Sooner or Later it’ll grab you and won’t let go.