Dear Ellen: Hot 20 Dirty 30 Under 40

Dear Ellen, Hi! What a freaking exciting week it's been!!  Late last week I found out that I was nominated for the 7x7 Magazine Hot 20 Under 40 list.  It's an annual list that 7x7 does featuring 20 of the city's "hottest" movers and shakers - interesting people do creative/cool things. They publish the list of top 20 people in the October issue of the magazine! Exciting! 7x7 is a really HOTT magazine.  I'm serious.  It's the hot, trendy, social, fun magazine in San Francisco - aimed at young professionals who have a discerning taste in art, music, culture, food, etc.... Anyhow, this whole "Hot 20" thing was a complete surprise -  they got word about Project DOG - and thought it worthy enough to include me as a candidate for my dog photography!  SO COOL!!!  ...You wanna know how I found out?  @puppysnob on Twitter first sent me a "congrats" tweet, LOL, then later I saw it on the 7x7 Facebook page!!  So I went bananas last week trying to spread the word and get votes - tweeting, txting, emailing, making banners... stuff like that and sure enough, I MADE THE TOP 20, YAY!!!! So now that I know I've made the Top 20, I'm still in the running for the Top 10, Top 5 and finally the Reader's Choice, depending on how far along I get.  I guess time will only tell!  If you want to VOTE FOR ME, CLICK HERE (#16)!!  This is turning out to be the BEST BDAY EVER! Yep, it's true.  Guess who's turning 3-0 tomorrow?!! ...Guess who I share my bday with?  Good ol Barack Obama, heheehee. My mom keeps asking me what I want for my bday.  Hmmm, tough one.  Some of the first things that come to mind... what do you think?

• Airline sponsor to take me to my Project DOG cities
• hotel sponsor to give me rooms in my target Project DOG cities
• rental car sponsor to help get me to my Project DOG photoshoots
• literary agent to help me pitch Project DOG
• book publisher to publish Project DOG
• media sponsor to help spread the word and share my Project DOG progress
• $$$$$$ to help pay for Project DOG
• Canon to sponsor me and give me (2) 5D MkII's to shoot my Project DOG photos with - one for stills and one for my assistant to take videos!
• unlimited vacation days so i can travel to take Project DOG photos

Oh, and I came up with a really great idea this morning on the BART train too. If I had money, I would put together an amazing 80s music festival. Yes, all 80's, and I would invite Pat Benatar, Heart, Chicago, REO Speedwagon, Prince, George Michael, Roxette, Joan Jett, David Bowie, Billie Idol, Erasure, Depeche Mode, Cyndi Lauper, Bon Jovi, Journey, etc... how amazing would that be?!! Ugh well here's a photo of myself that I took this morning with my phone - the very last photo taken of myself in my glorious 20's. Things in Project DOG land are really taking off!  I have close to 700 submissions now and just this morning I got a submission from a Pharaoh Hound from Denver!! So exciting, I am so thrilled at how many people are getting word about the project and submiting their dogs... dog breeds that I thought I'd never find are getting submitted - yesterday I got an Affenpinscher and an Old English Sheepdog!! Today I announced the first round of the Project DOG photo contest.  I'm going to hold it once or twice a month (haven't decided yet) and come up with different themes for each contest.  We'll see how that goes.... hehehe. Sorry no dog pics this week.  I had a photoshoot this past weekend with Chelsea the Boston Terrier, but I forgot the Ellen at home. Oops.  I'll be meeting up with her in the next week or two to get a shot.  I'm excited because now that I have some photos of her, my 2nd official sample spread will be complete.  YAY!  ...Only 10 more sample spreads to go before I can start pitching publishers!! Well, hope you're having a great week!