I took notes this weekend. A few more notes than I’d initially thought I would. I found myself constantly scribbling – PR tips, resource links, key names, WordPress backend ninja tricks from John O. Nolan, and nuggets of valuable SEO information from Michael Briggs.

This morning, I received a text message from my husband while sitting in Swedish class: “Massive news, 8.9 earthquake in Japan, devastating tsunamis in the whole pacific. Unbelievable images of tsunami, never seen anything like it. Just horrible.”

On December 1, 2010 when Quark Expeditions announced that it was looking for a blogger to follow its 20th anniversary expedition to the North Pole, my entry was the very first one submitted.