Report Card for January/February 2009
One thing about setting goals is that it helps when one is held accountable, either by oneself or by friends, family etc. So here is what I have done so far this year.
Fitness
I set out to become much fitter again, chasing myself ca. 1999, when I lived in the States, ice skated and went to the gym a lot. Two bouts of illness basically leave me way behind, but I’ll get moving.
Reading
The list is long, and I finished these:
McCarthy’s Bar (370p)
The To-Do List (330p)
Evelyn Wood (212p)
Personal Devolopment for Smart People (160p)
The To-Do List wasn’t on it, but I am still par for 26 which is almost all. Furthermore, I am two thirds in to Time of Our Singing and one third into Shadows of the Wind. Not sure though, whether I’ll finish the latter.
In addition (due to the illness), we basically breezed through The West Wing’s first 4.5 seasons. And we thought, getting rid of the TV would help watch less TV…
Web projects
- The Speaking English Podcast continues to run. Six episodes in 2009 so far.
- One work project went online as planned.
- The “taking the cell phone off the grid” project was a nice idea, but the charger didn’t put out enough power for the iPhone. Will try it on the Nokia 95 to use that as a camera maybe.
- Three Kanal 14 episodes were published, two more interviews are done, this week I have two more scheduled.
- My “Portfolio Project” looked like dead on arrival after early criticism. Illness didn’t help here either, but I re-started recording again. It will certainly look different than announced, but I’ll pick it up for sure.
- The band has now a repertoire of about 40 minutes (all covers). I hear Jessica Simpson’s sets are not much longer.
Political Links
What a great idea (via David Weinberger): US government agencies are required to use RSS to report on the stimulus money they give out. So everybody can easily stay informed!
I finally finished reading what must me the longest and worst formatted piece I ever read online, the Oral History of the Bush White House (Vanity Fair). Here is my favorite quote:
The contrast with having briefed his father and Clinton and Gore was so marked. And to be told, frankly, early in the administration, by Condi Rice and [her deputy] Steve Hadley, you know, Don’t give the president a lot of long memos, he’s not a big reader—well, shit. I mean, the president of the United States is not a big reader?
The Financial Crisis in Plain English (via Bjoern Ognibeni). Great video on how it all fell apart.
bellobene bloggt wieder
In einer Zeit als Corporate Blogs noch nicht so hießen (November 2006), habe ich, damals noch selbst für bellobene tätig, ein eben solches aufgesetzt und mit Artikeln und Videos über Moleskine, illy-Kaffee und das Leben hinter den Kulissen gefüllt. Nachdem kurz vor Weihnachten die Hauptseite bellobene.de gerelauncht wurde, hat man nun auch das Blog einem Design-Relaunch unterzogen (das war auch dringend nötig) und schreibt wieder.
Ich freue mich sehr und wünsche viel Spaß und Erfolg!
(Der RSS-Feed lautet http://feeds2.feedburner.com/bellobene und um es klar zu stellen, ich arbeite nicht mehr für bellobene.)
Nachtrag zum SpOn-Artikel: Kanal 14 Interview mit Hans-Josef Fell
Um mich nach dem SpOn-Artikel und Folgen (inkl. Interview bei der Sendung Trackback auf Radio Fritz) ein wenig schlauer in Sachen EEG und Emissionshandel zu machen, habe ich in der vergangenen Woche Hans-Josef Fell von Bündnis 90/Die Grünen geführt und auf Kanal 14 veröffentlicht.
Wenn sich wieder mal alles ändert
Junior macht wieder große Sprünge. Heute hat er das erste Mal die Situation ausgenutzt, dass zwei Stäbe am Bettchen nicht an ihrem Platz waren, und empfing uns nach seinem Nickerchen statt mit Geschrei in der Mitte seines Zimmers stehend. Damit ist dann wohl auch die Ära Schlafsack vorbei, denn es ist etwas gefährlich, ihn sackhüpfend auf die Reise zu schicken.
Gleichzeitig haben wir den Sitzbügel von seinem TripTrap-Stuhl abgebaut, er ist lang genug und benimmt sich auch so, wir werden sehen, ob das klappt oder nicht.
(Foto vom Tag der Amtseinführung von B. Obama)
Facebook, Twitter and the Gillmor Gang
I realize I haven’t trumpeted my Gillmor Gang fanboyism in a while. This neglect comes most likely from the two facts that A I haven’t been listening that religiously and the frequency has dropped, and B because the shows just haven’t grabbed me as they did last year.
In a recent show Facebook opening it’s status API was discussed, which was a fun episode. Talk came always back to the Marc Canter statement that Twitter would be worth only have as much after Facebook’s API announcement which proved a nice thread. I found myself agreeing with Hugh MacLead about not being able to get much use out of Facebook. I made an effort of playing with the stream controls and found that first and foremost it is slow. When I look at it in the morning, I see the same news items I saw when I went to bed. As if nothing had happened. Granted, I don’t have as many “friends” as MacLeod or Calacanis, but with 256 people there should be some activity. Where as, on Twitter, I am just in the zone. Robert Scoble was actually the great catalyst of the conversation, reminding everybody that it still need the user/comunity to make or break a service, not the feature.
Missing from the debate was the mention that one was previously able to connect Facebook status with twitter, thereby automatically displaying any twitter message in the status, and, with the new API, that now applications such as Twhirl might be able to integrate “Facebook” as a destination to send updates to. Not a game changer, but still that is stuff many geeks live for.
Try as hard as I might, I am not getting sucked into Facebook. One could argue that Twitter is wasting a lot of my time, but at least I get return. Not so much with Facebook. And apparently, not so much with the Gillmor Gang neither. I guess I just miss Dan Farber and Mike Vizard on the show.
(cross-posted to planetsab.de)
