BrainStream: More "Stuff About Me"

I haven't been posting lately because I'm trying to balance work and home life a little better and as a result, many of my "hobbies" are hurting. I use the term hobbies loosely because in many cases they mean a lot morer to me than that and sometimes require a lot more work.

I'm getting slightly better at being a dad. I can actually participate in comforting my son when he wakes up between feedings. The anxiety is all but gone and he seems a little more comfortable with me at night.

However he's teething and has one tooth with several others on the way. That combined with a sudden bout of nasal congestion made for a long night. But the best thing? I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH - My mother-in-law came downstairs about 11pm and offered to stay the night with the baby so all Kirky had to do was feed him and we could sleep. We still had the monitor on slightly and caught drips and drabs of his fussiness but that was one of the nicest things she's ever done - and it's not the first time she's done it. I still don't know how two parents do it alone - we're very, very lucky to have such a helpful woman assisting us.

In an attempt to bring you more into my digital realm, there are a few things I want to share. Together these make a digital "Day in the Life Of" for when I'm not working, though I'm very close to starting a work weblog too:

• My OPML file - OPML is a format used to aggregate RSS and Atom feeds into one file. Basically this contains all the Web sites I read throughout the day and updates for me every 15 minutes. It includes everything from News to Friend's sites. I don't update it that often as it sits on my system. I use SharpReader as my newsreader though it currently lacks support to read password-protected LiveJournal entries and I wish it used OPML as its native storage format.



• My Delicious site - Del.icio.us is a site that makes it incredibly easy to store links. Because it is done online there's less of a chance I loose everything in a crash. I store EVERYTHING there. Stuff I want to read later, stuff I want to remember and stuff that's just cool to watch. It has an RSS feed to you can watch it in your newsreader and see when I add something new. I'm going to make more of an effort to add some "commentary" to links and at some point it will become a mini-blog.



• The Music I listen to - AudioScrobbler has a plugin for iTunes for Windows that essentially "records" the metadata of what you listen to on their Web site. It allows you to rate music as well as see who else shares your listening habits.



• The Things I Covet - With the holidays rapidly approaching, I thought I'd toss up my Amazon wish list. Not only does it contain things I want, but I use it as a storage place for books, movies and music that look interesting along with the occasional cool gadget. Be sure to check out the movies and music items because according to a spirited discussion this morning with Kirky, I have way too many books I dont read already. You can also see my Amazon listmania lists and reviews here.



• My Movies - Well, this one is not yet functional. I use the Internet Movie DataBase to store a lot of information about the movies I watch, what I think of them, and what I want to see. Unfortunately, IMDB doesn't let you share this information nor is there an up-to-date plugin for MovableType to aggregate it. Hopefully this will be added in the future.



• Google Me - I'm still the only B.K. DeLong out there and there certainly is a loads of information about me to be found on Google. Probably things I've even forgot.

I'll add more stuff to this list as I think about it or remember it's around. At some point, I need to redesign this site and add all these links to a sidebar. But that will have to wait until the elusive dimension of time affords me more of it.

[BrainStream]
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