It always seems rather self-aggrandizing to start crowing when other bloggers award me blogging awards. This is not to say that it happens that often – and it’s certainly not that the recognition goes unappreciated when it does. It’s just that I’m notoriously bad at handling praise and compliments, mainly because I know me far too well to ever feel that they’re really justified (a pathological case of imposter syndrome, perhaps?).
However, I couldn’t help but be touched when Katie at Minor Revisions gave my humble blog an E (for excellent, before you think my personal standards are slipping), saying:

I took a couple semesters of Geology in undergrad (long story). I was less than enthralled by the material. I never lingered in the hallways to examine the various rocks and fossils in the glass cases and waited rather impatiently for class to be over so I could go do something more fun. Like nap. So when I started reading Chris, I had the vague thought that I wouldn’t subscribe for long if he didn’t write quite well. Given that I’ve been reading for a long time now, he must be doing something excellent with Highly Allochthonous that holds my flighty attention.

I can’t think of a testimonial that would mesh better with my entire blogging philosophy. My gratitude comes with a “right back atcha”, too: I first started reading Minor Revisions when I stumbled across her harrowing tale of PhD woe, but I’ve stayed because of all the post-doc bloggers I read, her accounts of her struggles with her life, career and self-confidence have the most humanity.
As for other blogs that you should be reading, here’s four more:
The Ethical Palaeontologist. I need to keep Julia sweet because she knows me from my undergraduate days, and I don’t want her to tell you all what a slacker I was. Fortunately, it’s easy enough to recommend her blog, because (i) she writes very knowledgably about all things dinosaurian; (ii) being British, she has a proper sense of humour; and (iii) she is a valuable comrade in the struggle to make people spell ‘palaeo’ properly.
Thus Spake Zuska. All of my SciBlings are of course excellent almost by definition, but I reserve a special shout-out to Zuska for her role in raising the consciousness of this particular white, middle-class male about exactly how much the academic environment can suck for women. Yes, she’s vehement, but her posts always give you something to think about; and just try rebutting her points without sounding like an asshat. It’s harder than you think.
The Planetary Society Weblog. One of my first stops whenever I want the actual story behind the breathless NASA press release. Emily Lakdawalla is also very fond of playing around with the raw data from space probes old and new, and the results of her analyses are often fascinating.
Geotripper. One of the newer recruits to the geoblogosphere, and definitely one to check out for the author’s apparently inexhaustible supply of cool geological images.