In about a month and a half, I won't be able to update this Web site the way I have for the last five or six years.

Blogger is shutting down its FTP service, which means I won't be able to create blog entries using Blogger and have it automatically FTP to my Web host.

My options as it stands are to either move my entire site to a Google-hosted platform, which I don't want to do, or to move this blog to some other kind of blogging software, like Wordpress, which I quite like and have used for blogging on other sites.

Or I could just shut down this site. That's certainly an option, but not one I'm really considering. For one thing, I have advertisers who've already paid for the text ads you see on the rails and those agreements are ongoing.

But I like posting here, even as infrequently as it happens. It's my home on the Web. I don't post my most private thoughts (I like having a job and feeding my kids), but I do let it hang out a little more here than in other places where I write, except for maybe Twitter, where I'm most off-the-cuff (within limits).

It's hard to believe the site has been around almost 10 years and that I suddenly have to decide whether it's worth the effort to move it to Wordpress. That's probably what I'll do, but a petulant part of mine thinks, "Fuck this. I have more important shit to deal with."

Like, say, watching a bunch of DVR'd episodes of Saturday Night Live and Mighty Boosh. So not really important stuff, really, just things I'd rather be doing than learning how to export a site from Blogger and import it into Wordpress. 10 years ago, I had the patience to learn how to create image maps and to use Dreamweaver and Fireworks to create this Web site, but now I barely have the patience to get my car registration renewed and toilet train my two-year-old. (I know. Priorities!)

Part of me wishes I had the willpower to just nuke the whole site and start over on Wordpress, but I know that's not a possibility. I'm getting better about not holding onto the past so much, but I hate it when Web sites disappear and their archives go away forever. I know that's a site owner's prerogative, but as a reader it always feels like the author of a book I quite like snuck into my house and removed it from the bookshelf so I can never go back and browse through its pages ever again. I don't think I could do that.

So we'll see what happens. I have more than a month to figure it out in between dealing with South by Southwest Interactive, working and doing everything else I do.

I'm annoyed, but I'll get over it. Blogger is NOT a good blog platform; it's tolerable and I've put up with it for years longer than I should have because I didn't feel like migrating elsewhere, but it's sad how far Blogger has fallen behind other blogging platforms and how such a cool thing has just suffered from neglect and lack of innovation. It feels like an elephant graveyard and maybe that alone will be enough to motivate me to get my ass over to the greener grass of Wordpress, Terribly Happy in tow.

This week was like a dress rehearsal for next week, when I'll be going back to work after a six-week absence. I've been at work once a week this month and have been doing NPR and other work-y things, but on Monday, things go back to semi-normal, except that there is a really small human being added to the mix for us to worry over.

On Monday, I did a very brief NPR All Tech Considered segment that was the fastest I've ever been recorded for them. We did it one take, three minutes, DONE. I'm a little afraid to listen to it because it went so quickly, but I'm going to go on thinking that it was awesome and that there's nothing I could have done better with multiple takes or more time. Please don't correct me on that if I'm wrong. The blog entry that goes with it took considerably more time.

Of course, the other big thing in my world was Apple's iPad announcement. I wrote what I thought was a pretty fun lead-up blog entry about it on rejected names for the device, then I went to work on Wednesday to lead a live chat on Digital Savant. The news was coming fast and furious and by late afternoon my brain felt melted.

I met with my friend Mical to do a Skype video chat with Bobby Bones, whom I've worked with in the past and who has brought us on to help with a new project.

Then I went home and recorded a lengthy Age of Lasers podcast about the iPad with Glark. It was a full, busy day and a bit of a preview of how things might be very soon. I'm also scripting new Trailers Without Pity episodes with Pablo G. and trying to keep up with TV, newspaper articles and RSS feeds. (And e-mail. Always the e-mail.)

Did I mention there's a baby? Diapers, feedings, all that.

So, yes, it's busy, but it's good. Happy, even. Yay for a busy, fulfilling 2010!

Except for the part where four days a week I stay home instead of going to work, things seem pretty normal around here. Given the amount of time our new Carolina sleeps during the day, you could easily forget that there's a four-week-old hanging around.

Instead she bides her time and stays up all night, grunting and demanding, keeping her poor parents up until that horrible hour in the morning when one of the has to get up to take the two-year-old to her daycare. It's almost like these two siblings haven't figured out yet how to coordinate their schedules yet to maximize the ease with which their parents might provide nurturing care for them. What the Hell, kids?

Next week is the last week of sick leave I have left before I go to work, but that's sort of not really true because I plan to go to Austin on Monday for an NPR segment and again on Wednesday for a work day to cover Apple's very-likely tablet announcement.

This week was my first NPR All Tech Considered piece since early December. I don't know how you might react if suddenly asked to go on a national radio show to talk about Haiti relief. My reaction was something like, "Ah. Could we talk about funny cats on the Internet instead?"

I'm so glad we did the on-air segment, though, (and the blog entry, which has lots of great links) because I'm pretty blown away by how concerned people have been. This is despite one or two lunkheaded comments I've seen about Haiti on the various social networks I frequent.

I joke around a lot about everything, but my tolerance for jokes about this is somewhere close to zero. My tolerance is even less for people who have to ask why we should bother to help people in such dire circumstances when we have plenty of serious problems here in the U.S.

If I have to explain why you should help a country where 200,000+ people may have died and which many hundreds of thousands more are, literally, on the edge of death, then you are not a person that can be convinced anyway. You are not a person I can waste my time on because you don't get it. You probably won't get it, not for many years to come if at all, and I have no time for you. Haiti has no time for you. Stay the Hell out of the way.

Another new thing I forgot to post about last week is a Space Monkeys! comic we did about Avatar. I still haven't seen this movie, but I hope to sometime in the next few days. 3+ hours in a theater is tough to swing when you have a newborn.



Because of the time it takes to do our Trailers Without Pity videos, we pretty much put the comic on hold indefinitely. We had hoped to do a few more over the holidays, but, hey, infant. Pablo also has some things that are keeping him busy right now, so, sadly we're not able to do the comics we want to do right now.

We love that universe, we love the characters, and we both hate not being able to produce comics regularly. We've been discussing ways to do simpler, more quick-hit comics, which I'm totally down with, but we'll see if it comes to fruition. For the time being, the Avatar comic will have to be a one-off holiday bonus.

I'm really quite happy with the way the 3-D version of the comic (requires red/blue 3-D glasses) came out. It was pretty amazing that Pablo taught himself how to do that so quickly. He's sharp like that.

There's a new episode of "Age of Lasers" up today, #006, in which Glark and I pretend (but not for very long) that we went to the big Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week. We talk about 3-D TV, devices that stream Internet content to your television, e-books/tablets and other stuff. Also, porn. I'm not sure exactly that got in there.

We recorded it this afternoon and it was up in record time. It's the first one we've recorded since before Christmas and I was relieved to get back into it because the weeks since Carolina was born have been a weird mix of sleep deprivation, boredom, crazy excitement and activity, and little bits where it almost feels like a vacation. (Or, the dreaded word, "Babycation.")

I took six weeks off from work because I had mountains and mountains of sick time piled up from 12 years of not really ever getting sick at my job. In truth, even taking six weeks of sick time barely makes a dent in the almost 800 hours of sick leave I'd accrued.

Of course, you can't just take an extended amount of sick time just because; a doctor had to recommend it and because my wife isn't being allowed to drive and we have a 2-year-old in daycare, I need to be home to help for that time. We did a weird little addendum though: I'm going to work one day a week to clear out e-mails and go through packages that pile up and also meeting with my editor to begin South by Southwest Interactive planning for March. So, really, I'm only off for about five weeks.

I've done this one-day thing for two weeks now and in that time I've completely cleared out tons of boxes and junk under my desk, organized my files, answered e-mails (anytime my inbox has fewer than 50 messages I'm in good shape) and have sent back a lot of review loan products that had been piling up.

It's nice to be back at work but not under the pressure to work on stories or blog. Blogging and keeping up with e-mails and other communication, I've come to find, probably take up about 80 percent of my work day. The rest is spent trying to pull together stories for print and other odds and ends. That doesn't leave a lot of time for sending back packages to companies that loan us products or keeping my paper files up to date. The part of me that still adheres to Getting Things Done loves this opportunity I have to get my shit together.

I also haven't been doing NPR since December and that was mostly the birth but also just luck of the draw in that the last few segments have already been pulled together without me being needed. I think I'm on next Monday, but I'm not 100 percent sure on the topic yet.

And then there's "Trailers Without Pity" which I'm about to start working on new scripts for this weekend and another project, possibly for TV, that some good friends have asked me to help out on.

Things are ramping up again and in two and a half weeks I'll be back at work full time and things will be crazy and accelerated all over again. We'll have new stuff to deal with like the possibility of two separate daycares. I have to keep reminding myself we have a whole other human in our house who needs attention and that it's a very real possibility that I simply can't keep up my usual pace. After Lilly was born, several things I had spent years working on began to fall away (LCP, recapping for TWoP), not necessarily because I was ready to stop but because I had no choice but to stop.

Those decisions have worked out well, but I'm finding that my number one priority right now is finding the balance between keeping these creative endeavors going that I love so much and not neglecting my family or taking too much time away from home. I'm not sure how I'll do it all and, as I get older, simply skipping sleep like I used to is becoming less and less attractive.

I'm hoping 2010 has as many surprises and fortuitous turns as 2009 did for us.

I'm not sure why it took me so long to get to this post. I could use the excuse that I've been reproducing and that the past year was just insanely busy, but my life is always insanely busy and that never stops me from saying what I want to say.

So instead, I'll suppose that I wanted to let enough time pass before I even brought up the subject because when it was all happening it seemed to weird and foreign that it embarrassed me to even bring it up.

Now, it just seems like, "Something weird and interesting that happened last year," so here goes.

After a series of events at work last summer, my face ended up plastered on a giant billboard on IH-35 in north Austin. And on a local TV commercial. And in some print ads.

It was an ad campaign our newspaper did to highlight people in the newsroom and, I suppose, ingratiate us to the community a little. I was one of about seven people (some in pairs) who were part of these ads. There was a months-long build-up to it and it all started with me committing to be a part of it in the first place, which itself was a leap of faith.

The idea, I was told, was that we'd be doing slam poetry against a white backdrop. A guy I really don't like at the Austin Chronicle had just written an article mocking our paper for a column that dealt with slam poetry and the last thing I wanted to do to open myself up to ridicule by some bitter, unloved hack at the weekly rag who already has an axe to grind with us.

But partly because I was asked and also because a friend of mine was responsible for writing the content of the ads, I went ahead with it. I had lots of second thoughts. I freaked out a little. When I had to parade a bunch of clothes (not my own) in front of several coworkers and film people like I was shopping with mom for back-to-school clothes I wondered if there was any way I could bail.

I felt goofy at the photo shoot.

I felt 10 times goofier at the video shoot, even though the company that was doing it for us had a very talented director, a really professional crew and even a nice little food spread laid out for an all-day Saturday session.

Then -- as sometimes happens in life and you have to just go with it -- it turned out better than I expected. People seemed to really like the ads. When I'd go to happy hour events, my friend Wesley would introduce me as, "This is Omar. He's on a billboard."

If I were single, that would have been a fantastic way to meet women. I don't know why I never thought to buy myself billboard space in my early 20s.

Seeing the billboard in person, parked by the side of the road, was so trippy I chose to just ignore it and take some photos. I felt incredibly self conscious standing there with a tripod and camera as people drove by, some schmoe taking a picture of giant picture of himself.

The NPR segments I've been doing are a much more high-profile thing, but it's radio. I never seen the listeners. I never know where they are and, although I get lots of feedback, I don't have to see myself over those airwaves or worry about what I look like out there to people who don't know me.

But, at the same time, I find that as I get older the opportunity to take risks and do something out of my comfort zone (that doesn't involve creating children) become fewer and fewer. I'm glad it all happened and that I took a leap of faith, but it made for a strange 2009. At least I've got lots of visuals to remember it.

The billboard:

One of the print ads:

A banner that was near our lunch room (and which scared lots of co-workers and lunch servers):

The commercial:

OK, now I don't want to look at any of this stuff again until at least 2011.

I know that many writers have been out there filing their very last story before vacation, listing their top 10 movies, top 10 albums, songs, knitting patterns, whatever of the last decade.

Well, that's really subjective and just adorable.

While many of them have been doing not much more than cruising their iTunes Most Played list and typing away, I've been out on the mean streets -- pounding the pavement, kneading the dough, dotting the i's, crossing the doughnuts, pickling the peppers (it's just an expression) -- keeping a top 10 list that reflects not just art and culture, but EVERYTHING.

EVERYTHING!

Here, without further delay, then, is the only Top 10 of the 2000s list you'll need.

The Top 10 Things of 2000-late 2009:

1. Cheese.
   
2. The space bar.
   
3. Slides.
   
4. Raspberry lemonade.
   
5. Very old peckers.
   
6. Tiny socks.
   
7. Pauses.
   
8. The entire southern hemisphere.
   
9. That Nathan Fillion guy.
   
10. Boner pills. (See #5)

You're welcome, '00s!

We got home from the hospital on Christmas Eve, and as has been pointed out by many, having a baby around this time turned out to be the perfect gift.

What's been strange and unexpected was the relatively pain-free, easy time we've had so far. It's true what they say about how if you remembered all the sleeplessness and fear of having a baby, you'd never sign on to do it again. We kept trying to remind ourselves how difficult the first few months would be, how tired and cranky we'd be and how that pain would be compounded by having an energetic two-year-old in the house.

What we absolutely weren't expecting was a perfect, on-schedule delivery, three drama-free days in the hospital, and despite the requisite rough first nights, more sleep than we remembered getting last time.

Rebecca's recovery has been nothing short of astounding. Last time, I remember her being in pain for weeks, unable to even laugh much from her post-op pain. This time, she wisely opted to take the recommended meds and was up on her feet -- to my amazement -- the day after Carolina was born. She's been walking and talking and doing her normal stuff ever since with barely a look back.

Of course, she's also taking meds that could make a horse fly, so we'll see how it goes when those wear off. But, again, the last thing we expected was to have an easy time of this and, knock on wood, things have been a lot easier than last time. We're feeling pretty lucky and much less disoriented than we did in August of 2007.

Because we were expecting an apocalyptic winter, I decided to take a sizable chunk of sick leave I'd had built up, to take a few weeks off from NPR and to stop doing "Trailers Without Pity" until February. Now that I'm one week into this so-called "Babycation," everything suddenly feels very still. I have no deadlines that don't have to do with diaper changes and picking up Lilly at daycare.

Part of it is the season. Christmas-to-New Year is always when everything online starts to grind to a halt and when I can finally catch up on the DVR, RSS feeds and books that have piled up.

Of course there's more to do now. Carolina is very mellow -- she hardly cries at all and sleeps quite a bit -- but I know that will change quickly and she'll find her lungs soon enough. But I'm most thankful of all for this brief bit of time where everything feels manageable. We're hardly in normal territory and as soon as work and deadlines return, it'll be a whole different ball of waxy matter.

I've also been thinking a lot about the last 10 years and all that's happened. Like a lot of other people I work with, I had to be reminded that we were approaching the end of a decade. KInd of snuck up on us. It just doesn't seem like the end of 10 years, does it?

I had a story in the paper yesterday about the last decade of technology, particularly in how things have shaken out in Austin. 10 years ago, we started "Technopolis," which I've always said was the most fun I've ever had in my newspaper work.

That was until my current gig. For the article, I went digging back through the stacks of newspapers and was reminded of so many people I met and so many stories we wrote. I remembered starting Terribly Happy almost 10 years ago. I remember living in a crappy apartment in a crime-ridden neighborhood with a mean little black cat.

I hadn't met some of my closest friends yet and I was terribly homesick for my college days in Oklahoma. I was broke most of the time and ate a ridiculous diet of bachelor-crap all the time.

I didn't know I'd end up where I ended up, and at the time I probably would have thought that having two kids and living the way I do now was pretty lame. Sometimes it is, but it's also made me happier than I ever thought was possible.