I’m no big fan of meta-posts, so I promise not to make a habit of this. Just feeling the need to affirm that this project is far from over, and despite my apparent shift over to Twitter I intend to post more in-depth writing here as soon as I can find a way to do so.
Blogging has been a hard project to make time for (given my apparently inadequate time-management skills, at least), and becoming a Dad nearly a year ago has ratcheted the difficulty level up another major notch. By the time my wife and I get home from our jobs at the end of a half-hour commute, do the evening dinner, bath time & bedtime routine with our “little guy”, get the kitchen back under control, deal with mail and bills, etc., it’s usually around 9pm and we’re good for little more than collapsing in a heap for an hour or so before bed. Repeat 5x and add 2 days of full-time parenting and it’s a typical week. My best bet seems to be squeezing a bit of writing in before bedtime when possible (like I’m doing now), or during occasional bouts of insomnia, but that approach hardly seems likely to produce my best work. I’m in awe of others, parents among them, who manage to make time to blog with any frequency, let alone on topics that require substantial research and thought. I really have no idea how they do it (but I’m eager to learn!).
In short: It may take a while longer for me to work the logistics out. But the passage of time has only strengthened my conviction that writing here is an important project that I need to make time for somehow. I will trust, as I have many times before in my life, that where there’s a will there’s a way, necessity is the mother of invention, and all that good stuff, and hope that through persistence I can eventually find a way to translate constantly thinking about things into action on writing about them.
Hope there’ll be more to see here soon. ‘Til then…
The situation for survivors of Haiti’s horrific earthquake is desperate, and getting worse. Please give what you can.
Here’s a list of organizations that are providing aid. I gave to the American Red Cross. You can too.
No need to watch your step, folks … the surface changes are minor and shouldn’t cause any big trouble … but I’ve done a bit of remodeling behind the scenes here to better serve you, our valued patrons.
Specifically, I’ve finally finished porting my heavily customized blog template to Blogger’s newer “Layouts” format. The process was about as fun as it sounds, but part of the payoff is that I can now classify my posts using “labels” (a.k.a. “tags”) for your surfing and post-discovery convenience.
This of course means I have a new job to do (isn’t it neat how that works?) — choosing appropriate tag set, and going back and tagging all of my old posts. I’m only partway through that, with most of 2007 through 2009 left to go, so the categories aren’t yet complete (though “9/11” is mostly there already), but note that you can now discover posts on related topics using the “Labels” links that appear at the end of each post and under the “About Me” box in the right sidebar. (You may now welcome me to the early 21st century. Thank you.)
I’ll of course be tagging new posts as I go from now on, and I hope to finish tagging the rest of the old ones soon.
That’s it. Please let me know if you run into any problems during the bringup, including posts that seem misclassified. — Thanks!
The Management
I just now realized, while looking back through my archives for something, that yesterday was the 4th anniversary of my first post here.
I’m finding it hard to believe that so much time has gone by, and I feel there’s a great deal more writing that I’d have hoped to find time do by this point, but at the same time I’m glad to have started the project and kept it going at least somewhat steadily, if slowly. I still remember sitting in the back of a conference hall taking advantage of some downtime to draft and publish my first post. The feeling of casting out a proverbial sort of “message in a bottle” was a real lift to my spirits, and I suspect is much the same high that so many other bloggers have said helps keep them writing and publishing.
My biggest regret so far is not having continued the project of recounting key parts of my own life, and exploring the ways they have influenced my worldview, that I set out to begin. I wrote a first
[awkwardly self-conscious and not highly recommended] post in the intended series in September 2005, and didn’t get any farther than that. I still have hope of picking that project up again and making something interesting of it, if I can make the time. Soon, I hope (eternal optimist that I am)!
There are also many thoughts in the realm of economics, entrepreneurship, cultural self-perception and self-doubt/confidence that have struck me over the years and continue to nip at my mind, waiting impatiently to be written down and developed, and I’m hanging onto the mental, electronic, and paper notes where I’ve jotted bits down, hoping to get to those someday too.
Meanwhile, I have greatly enjoyed the past six months (amazed that it’s been that long already!) of meeting and conversing with so many amazing, interesting, insightful and devoted fellow freedom-lovers and America-lovers on Twitter. I highly recommend giving Twitter a try, to those who may feel as ideologically isolated as I do. I find the Twitter experience has been a great complement to blogging, rather than a replacement for it — a suitable place for fragments of thought that don’t require lengthier exposition, or that I haven’t yet found the time to develop into something in-depth enough to be worthy of a blog post. The blog, meanwhile, has served me well as a more permanent-feeling structure of sorts, on which to hang my expression of love for the American Idea and way of life. I aim to convey in these pages, not just concerns and gloom that have tended to occupy my thoughts at times, but also a sense of celebration of who we are and the way we live. I hope that comes across in the design as well as in the content.
My sincere thanks to any and all who have popped in now and then to read the pages here. Please do stop by again; I intend to keep this project going and have more to offer in the future!
A bit of very important good news to impart, for anyone reading my blog who hasn’t also been following me on Twitter: I recently became a father!
Two weeks ago, my wife gave birth to a healthy baby boy. Mom and son are both doing very well, and we are delighting in the incredible and wonderful experience of becoming parents to an adorable tiny new person. There have been plenty of half-sleepless nights of crying and comforting and feeding and diaper-changing since, but just being in the company of the amazing little guy has made it all worthwhile.
Posting here is likely to be less frequent than usual for a while, due to my newfound and greatly enjoyed duties of fatherhood taking precedence, but I fully intend to continue this project when I find time. Meanwhile, I’m continuing to post daily on Twitter, where I can always be found. (If you haven’t tried Twitter yet, I highly recommend giving it a whirl — I’ve been greatly enjoying both the medium and the great many new and interesting friends I’ve made there!)
Sincere thanks for the many kind wishes people have sent via Twitter and e-mail! I greatly appreciate the thoughtful notes, and am very happy to be able to share the joy of becoming a new parent!
Hard to believe it’s been nearly three weeks already since I started using Twitter (my first Twitter post is here)! I think I was pretty well hooked by Day 2, and now I don’t care to imagine life without Twitter.
Being able to read and post tweets on the go from my iPhone is what has really made it work, as life offers plenty of opportunities for a quick, 120-character-or-less note that aren’t conducive time-wise to writing substantial blog posts (which the entry method on the iPhone isn’t really well suited for anyway). I definitely engage with the “Twittersphere” much more via iPhone than via a web browser on the desktop/laptop. So far I’ve been using “Twitterific”, and it’s been great, though I’ve noticed there are a few other highly-rated iPhone Twitter clients that are probably worth a look. Twitterific’s ability to post pictures, current location coordinates (approximate in my case, since I have a first-gen iPhone), and URLs from Safari are very nifty, and have been lots of fun to use so far.
In terms of the Twitter community/experience, it’s been very interesting to see the variety of ways in which others use Twitter, and to start to figure out how I want to use it. The founding idea of posting occasional quick notes about “what you’re doing now” is appealing, and to some limited extent I’ve been sticking to that so far. Others have taken their use beyond that starting point, using Twitter more to chat with other users (or “Twits”, if you prefer), or as a short-form blog of sorts. Some individuals’ feeds consist mainly of links to news articles, and there are also news organizations such as the WSJ, CNN, and BBC that offer their headlines and story links in Twitter form. I followed Instapundit via Twitter for a short while, but found that my previous habit of reading RSS/Atom feeds via NetNewsWire works much better for keeping up with Glenn’s stream and other blogs/news feeds. There have been other Twitter-isms to discover such as “#tcot”, the search hashtag for Top Conservatives on Twitter. I haven’t yet figured out whether or how deeply I want to participate in that, but the #tcot list has already helped me find a number of interesting users to follow. So far, I’ve mainly been inclined to follow people with similar interests who post more everyday “what I’m up to” tweets, or a combination of that and pointers to interesting news and such. I get a good dose of news and editorials already via the blogs and sites I follow, and find what I really enjoy in Twitter is the opportunity to see what others like me do or find interesting in their day-to-day lives. There are plenty of other potential uses inherent in the Twitter format though, and maybe I will find myself making more use of them as time goes by.
Meanwhile: You can continue to find me here at fearlessdream.blogspot.com fearlessdream.us, as well as on Twitter at twitter.com/kulak76 See you all out there!
