less blog, more lifestream

For a while now I’ve been thinking that the only sustainable way to breathe life into this space is to integrate content from my other online haunts. Bottom line? I am not now, nor have I ever really been a regular blogger. Lately, it’s been months (not weeks) between posts. At the same time, while I have considered ditching this blog altogether, I am not quite sure I’m ready to do that just yet. I’m sentimental that way.

So, I started thinking about doing a bit more “lifestreaming” in this space a few months ago, but never did anything about it, mostly for lack of time. To-day I started tooling around, looking for plugins & such, then the tooling turned into testing, and testing turned into a template refresh and a few hours later, we have this. If you’re reading this via RSS, pop over and have a look.

Four resources made it happen:

• this really simple page explains how to add a second sidebar to your theme.
• the Homepage Excerpts plugin excerpts blog posts on the index page.
• the FlicrkRSS widget generates the image sidebar.
• the RSS Stream plugin makes the lifestreaming section come together.

I like it. It feels right. Of course, now that I’ve dusted things off around here, the blogging impulse has returned somewhat (of course!). If things look funky in your browser, let me know? Thanks!

O HAI !

I was at a conference yesterday where I learned that Technorati defines an “inactive” blog as one that has not been updated in 120 days. That inconsequential nugget of information instantly made me wonder what 171 days of inactivity gets you. And then, all at once, an overwhelming feeling of guilt/failure washed over me as I realized that I was contributing to the deep pit of rotting blogs and forgotten intentions, and that jolted me out of my stupor quite nicely.

So, um, hi! You might remember me. I used to blog here.

I honestly don’t know what happened back there. I have about 16 posts in draft, started and abandoned sometime over the last 171 days, not one of them particularly interesting, just more of the same newsy, this-is-what-I’ve-been-up-to type of post. Once a post like that has been abandoned, it’s pretty damn difficult to pick up where you left of and forge ahead. So, let’s just think of the last 171 days as a collection of those abandoned moments, shall we? Good.

I’ve dusted things off around here just the tiniest little bit. I considered a redesign as some sort of symbolic relaunch (ha!), but it turns out that I’m still very fond of the simplicity of this layout, so I opted instead to upgrade the plumbing and make a couple of superficial adjustments (colour, font). For now, I’m pleased with it.

It’s nice to be back!