Awesome hubby wins big award

I want to send a big shout-out to my husband, Ron, who traveled to the 11th Annual Webby Awards in New York last week to collect a trophy for diynetwork.com, the website he directs. The New York Times calls the Webby Awards "the Oscars of the Internet," and when you consider the billions of web pages out there, the old cliche "it's an honor just to be nominated" really rings true. Ron and his group won The People's Voice Award in the Lifestyle category, which means out of a field of five nominees, diynetwork.com received the most votes from the online community.

In keeping with World Wide Web language conventions, winners' acceptance speeches are limited to just five words. (A convention I tried to follow when titling this post.) The group had weeks to collaborate on a five-word sentence and ultimately arrived at this gem, which incorporates a clever plug for a new DIY network series on the art of demolition: "Now, let's get hammered." As site director, Ron went on stage to accept the award and deliver the "speech," which he says received the loudest applause of the evening, a fact I am sure had nothing to do with Absolut Vodka being one of the program sponsors.

Visit the official Webby home page to learn more about the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences and to see a complete list of winners and nominees. If you have some time to kill, browse the cool, interactive Flash gallery of winners. It's a fun way to discover some hidden treasure on the Internet. In addition to diynetwork.com, two winning web sites worth visiting are SaveTheInternet.com and PoetryFoundation.org.