Now where were we?

It started two weeks ago when Mom came to visit. I decided that I wouldn’t be spending a lot of time online while she was here. I already had to sacrifice 10 hours of the day to work, plus another 4-6 hours to sleep, and I wanted to spend every last second with Mom in between those mandatory work and sleep times.

Then Mom went home and … I didn’t feel like blogging. Not that there wasn’t a ton of stuff to write about – there’s always something to write about, and usually always waaay to many things to write about – but I just didn’t feel like writing. And I didn’t just stop writing; I pretty much went off the net (don’t worry – I brought smelling salts – just take a whiff of these – it’s going to be alright). I lost track of my google reader (thanks for mocking me “1000+” new posts to read, Google. Thanks for that. I see a “Mark All As Read” in your future, buddy.), I cut way back on Twitter and Facebook, and I spent time doing non-computer things. I think those 4-6 hours of sleep I was getting every night for a week may have caught up to me. And  just falling out of the pattern of sitting down, reading the interwebs and writing made it hard to get enthusiastic about picking it up again.

While I was away I had a chance to read Hank Fox’s Red Neck Blue Collar Atheist, Jenny Lawson’s (The Bloggess), Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, and Dan Simmons’ Hyperion Cantos (thanks to the commenter who suggested – nay insisted – that I read this book. It was very thought-provoking and I’m still processing it all. I need to Book Club this thing). I put in a few hours on the Wii, finished the first season of Torchwood, did a few radio shows for Atheists Talk. And I caught up on my sleep.

An aside – I’ve heard that parenting is very rewarding for those of you who want to be parents, but having free time to watch John Barrowman and James Marsters simultaneously make out, flirt and beat the crap out of each other is way more entertaining to me than  cleaning up baby diapers. Yeah, yeah, yeah…rewarding, raising the next generation, imparting values, continuing your family line…I see and raise you JOHN BARROWMAN SNOGGING JAMES MARSTERS. I rest my case.

Now where were we?

Ah yes, writing hiatus. I was starting to get worried that I wasn’t wanting to write, but today I felt the sparkle. My carpool mate didn’t ride with me today, so I able listen to NPR and a few podcasts, and on some level my brain started writing posts and I had to get to a computer. HOLY CRAP THERE’S SO MUCH TO WRITE ABOUT!!!!

But then, before my head exploded from information overload and a backlog of news stories and not knowing where to begin, I decided to write a “dip my toe back in the water” post.

This is that.

This weekend I’m going to the Midwest Freethought Conference. I’m driving down tonight and tomorrow there’s an awesome lineup of AWESOME. I’m looking forward to sharing my experiences and impressions of the weekend. If you’re attending the Midwest Freethought Conference, I’d love to meet you. And if you’re a conference twitter fiend, the hashtag is #MWFT2012.

Now where were we?
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Apologies…

Apparently I committed a No-No this past weekend. When I offered to give away cuddly knit creature to anyone who donated to the SSA, I was running what could be construed as a raffle, and raffles are subject to a crazy number of rules, regulations and even taxes that no one wants to get into. So sadly, I cannot draw names from you wonderful, generous people who donated during my blogathon. I offer my sincere apologies to anyone who donated to the SSA in hopes of getting one of these little guys, and if you have questions, concerns, suggestions or want to shoot me a nastygram or Howler I can be reached at [email protected].

So what to do with the cuddlies? I could put them on ebay and sell them there as a fundraiser for SSA, but that feels a little like potentially making double money on them. Erin has already knit them and I feel like they belong to the Biodork readers, so I’m going to give them away to you guys completely independent of the blogathon that took place this weekend. Just post a comment in the section below and I will throw your name in a hat. On Thursday morning I will draw three names and each of those people will get one of the following creatures:

One of the microbes pictured above.

One trilobite

Neuron

Thank you for your understanding!

Apologies…

Removed from Jesus

Hey – I’ve made it as an atheist writer! You know how I know? Because someone signed me up for six different Christian mailing lists! Big time, baby. I’m not sure how to best deal with them (especially if I find myself getting signed up for more along the way), but for now I just unsubscribed.

This was my favorite subscription update page of all of them:

On internet you don’t remove Jesus – Jesus removes you.

Removed from Jesus

I Can Haz Archives!

Whew! That Lousy Canuck guy is pretty awesome. He did some magical tech stuff in the background and now the entirety of my old WordPress blog is accessible from here. It’s kind of amazing – all of the comments, the pages, the catergories and tags – they’re all here.

Thanks, Jason!

So if you have any interest in my past writings, might I suggest the archives or the Tag Cloud in the right sidebar?

Also, there are some really, really great bloggers out there that I enjoy reading. They’re in my blogroll on the right. Go. Click on the links. Maybe add a few to your RSS feeds. You’ll love it. Mmmm…links.

I Can Haz Archives!

Final Post on Biodork

But not really. It IS my final post on WordPress.com, though – because I’m MOVING!

And I’m not even begging you to help me move boxes! Just to update your links and RSS feeds.

Guys. GUYS! This is really exciting.

I’ve been invited to move this blog over to the FreeThought Blogs network. For those of you who don’t know what that means, let me just say that THIS. IS.

That’s right. This is handmade-silly-sign-photographed-in-my-pajamas HUGE.

I’m SO excited. But first, a little information: A blog network is a group of individual blogs gathered under one umbrella. This type of setup is nice because fans of one blog get exposed to other similar blogs, and the blogs get more exposure from new readers. In this case, the similarity is that all of the bloggers are “Freethinkers” – we’re all atheists of one stripe or another, and we tend to blog either a little or a lot about atheism, infringements of church and state, humanism, and other related topics. Some of the blogs on the network are devoted primarily to exploring religion or atheism, some have a focus on politics or civil liberties, or diversity, or are more personal (like mine). They are all unique and owned by their authors.

One reason why this is exciting for me is because some of my favorite, most inspiring atheist bloggers are already in this network: Blag Hag, Pharyngula, Dispatches from the Culture Wars, Greg Laden’s X-Blog, Almost Diamonds, The Lousy Canuck, Greta Christina’s Blog, JT Eberhard, Digital Cuttlefish, Camels With Hammers, En Tequila Es Verdad. I’m not going to hyperlink all of these, but you can find them on the FreeThought Blogs front page (ooo…see how handy that network thing just was?).

But Biodork is not changing.

I don’t have to change one damn thing about the way I post, or what I post, or how often I post. The shell will look a little different, but the content will be staying mostly the same. The only thing that is changing are the pop-up ads. I know, I know! Ads are annoying, but they’re how FTB pays the bills. And hey, if you feel like clicking on an ad now and then, you’ll be supporting me and I’ll be grateful.

I’ve had some incredible commenters and discussions, tons of fun visitor interaction with the First World Problems Contest and the Close Up Photo Contest (CUP Update: Carly just got back to me with a blog topic, and I’m in the middle of putting together the winners’ photo books), and I’ve had a place opine, expound and to record and share some really neat life experiences. And that’s all going to continue over at Biodork v2.0. I’m in the process of transferring my archives, and my pages are already there.

Thanks for reading, and I do hope you’ll follow me next door to my new house:

http://cdn1.the-orbit.net/biodork/

If you have questions, concerns or comments about the move, let me know in the comments or send a private email to me at bio_dork(at)hotmail(dot)com, or contact me on Twitter (@abiodork), or let me know via any of the other gazillion ways we might be connected!

Final Post on Biodork

How Is It Wednesday Already?

I’m working on three different blog posts, including a super-dandy write up about the awesomeness that was my weekend trip to Chicago for Skepticamp. Things have been pretty crazy though and I’ve barely had had time to sleep, what getting back to Minneapolis late on Sunday, having to save unconscious humans from demons on Monday night with my roleplaying group (GURPS this time around), trying to pull together an interview script for this Sunday’s Atheists Talk radio show with singer-songwriter, Shelley Segal, putting together guns for this weekend’s EPIC Nerf War (yeah, there’s a photo that goes with that below), offering up a red dress to the Blogess’s Traveling Red Dress Project, and reading this hilarious blog (casually and frequently dropped F-bombs may make it NSFW) that I just discovered. So I haven’t actually gotten to any photo editing or writing, and I wouldn’t foist crappy writing off on this blog.*  But I haven’t even had time to pull together crappy writing because I’m too busy loving my life. Don’t you hate when that happens?

So until things calm down, here’s a couple of photos of people making funny faces:

Here’s Jeremy from the ever thought-provoking, humorous, breathtaking, snarky Le Cafe Witteveen. I was pleased as punch to be able to catch up with Monsieur Witteveen at Chicago Skepticamp on Saturday. In this shot he’s giving me his best grumpy old man face.

Come and get some! The Hubby shows off our new firearms for what is promising to be an epic Nerf battle at Supercon this weekend. Yeah…they’re battery operated and fully automatic.

*That’s a BIG FAT LIE. Crappy writing is one of the many services offered here at Biodork.

How Is It Wednesday Already?

Blog Admin: Links

It was time for a little spring cleaning around here!

My links were getting out of control for a while. I’ve removed most of the inactive sites and organized the remaining links in an order that is certainly more friendly for me. Take a look through the categories in the sidebar and go visit some of these marvelous websites and blogs. If you run a blog or website that you think I would enjoy and that you would like to appear in my blog roll, write a comment to this post and I’ll check it out!

Blog Admin: Links

MarsCon 2011 Teaser Photo

I’ve been crazy busy. Last weekend I  was at MarsCon, a fantasy/scifi convention in Bloomington, MN and this week I’m preparing for a trip to Cozumel. Rough life, I know.  Plus I have two standing engagements this week; Monday I was gaming and Thursday I’m going to monthly meeting of the Minneapolis Skeptics. That leaves Tuesday and Wednesday evenings to blog and do all those things that one does before going on vacation.

I have some fun stories and pictures from MarsCon, but I haven’t had time to write them up or to go through the photos in any detail yet. For now I’ll leave you with this photo from the very beginning of the convention. People are taking seats for opening ceremonies. My good friend Mark is in the foreground modeling his new, super-sexy Clark Kent glasses.

More to come!

~~~~~~

Oh heck, the seating photo was pretty bland. Have a photo of drunk, middle-aged He-Man from the opening ceremonies production:

Hehehe. Gotta love the fearless nerds and geeks.

MarsCon 2011 Teaser Photo