Oatmeal Stout – Justin Thorp’s blog

So… today I’m at WordCamp (the WordPress conference). It’s cool to see so much energy around blogging and how to take blogging into the future.

Of course, I think widgets play a big role in blogging.  Widgets allow you to take that blog content and bring it into more of an aggregated environment (i.e.  Apple Dashboard, iGoogle, Netvibes, and even mobile phones).

With the KickApps Widget Studio, I just created a widget for this blog.

Feel free to grab it and use it.

Not only do you want to share content from the blog out to the world, you want to be able to bring content into the blog.  It’s important to be able to share widgets into a blog.

So… I’m here to figure out how we can make this whole eco-system easier for people to use.

If you’re here at WordCamp, come find me and say hi.  I’m wearing a Clearspring t-shirt.

It just dawned on me that my entire family is now blogging.    This rocks.

My dad was the first one to start a blog.  You can find him on his personal blog Daily Grit, where he dives into issues he’s running into on a daily basis, and his neighborhood blog about living in Southwest Lansing.

You can find my mom at her new blog, Mrs. Thorp’s Third Grade Blog. She’s a retired teacher of many many years and is now imparting her wisdom into the blogosphere.

My soon-to-be brother-in-law Adam also has a blog. It’s called Ironies and Musings from a white, middle class, 20 something.

Both Adam and my sister have been in Easter Europe for the last little bit.   During the trip, she’s been doing some guest posts on his blog, which have been awesome.   I hope they’ll both continue to blog just as much, once they’re married.

Obviously, you can read me here.

So does your family blog? If so, drop links in the comments.

I have two more blogs that I’d highly recommend that you all read.

The blog Logic’s End is written by one of my classmates and best friends from college Louis Horton. He’s one of the smartest conservative poitical thinkers I know.  He’s a young and rising star.

Some of my fondest memories of college are of Louis, the gang, and I either debating politics, philosophy, or literature over beers or coffees.  I’ve learned so much from Louis and I’m confident you will be enlightened just as much.

Secondly, I’d recommend you all read the blog peregrine espresso. It’s written by the couple that’s putting in the new coffee shop at the location of the old Murky Coffee in Capitol Hill.

Just like me, I’m sure all of your hearts broke when the old Murky closed but I’m excited to see the new place and how it will help the Eastern Market area.

The blog is a great way to follow the opening of the new store.  I’m sure I’ll be there the day it opens.

My buddy Tom Bridge and his merry band of brethern (who used to write for Metroblogging DC) have just launched a new blog called “We Love DC.”

We’re going to be doing this a little bit differently than other blogs have done it. We’re going to be focusing on feature length content for our site, with an emphasis also on the hyperlocal microblogging.

I’m really excited about this blog.  These guys are great writers.  I’d highly recommend that you add it to your RSS reader.

I think the traditional Washington DC print media needs to be worried.  If I want to know what’s going on in DC, I’d more likely to go to a blog like “We Love DC” rather then picking up a paper edition of the Washington Post or City News.

Where do you all go to find out what’s happening in DC?  Any of you read some cool local Washington DC blogs?

With work, my life has been REALLY busy and you may have noticed that that there are big gaps between some of my blog posts.  I apologize.

I need to be more faithful to this medium and spend more time using it to explain what’s going in my life and my head.

Sometimes blogging feels like jogging (or physical exercise in general).  It’s so important but at times you’re just feel too tired.  You want to do it but you talk  yourself out of it. That’s no excuse.

For me blogging/writing is a way for me to excercise my ability to think critically about my life.  Writing about my experiences or the issues that creep into my brain forces me to think deeper and harder.

I think it’s the more that we force ourselves to think critically and ask questions the clearer some things will be come.

So… it’s time to get off my butt and write some more.  Check back to this blog often.

I was with some friends about this the other day and then saw the notion mentioned on Jeremiah O’s blog.  People are reading blogs from a feed reader (ie Google Reader) and totally missing out on all the conversation that is happening in the comments.  That sucks.

There should be a way for people to easily read and write comments all from something like Google Reader.   How cool would it be if I could comment on a podcast from iTunes or from my iPhone.

We need to allow the conversation to take place even in these aggregated environments.

Maybe the lack of this type of capability is a downfall of feeds and a bonus for a widget.  It’d be completely possible to make a widget for a blog that allows you to read and write comments on a post.

What do you think?

Because I’ve been traveling a lot lately and have had a longer commute to work, I’ve had much more time to read.  One of the books that I recently finished is “Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs, a Parody” by Daniel Lyons.

Not too often is there a book that has actually made me laugh out loud. This book made me laugh out loud.

The book is kind of an out growth of Lyons’ blog –  The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, which is also a riot to read.

I’d recommend reading the book to anyone who is like me a member of the cult of mac.

So this will be my first year attending the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas and it’s already promising to be a really special event.

The Library of Congress blog, which I helped get going, is a finalist for the blog category of the SXSW Web Awards.  AWESOME!!!!!

The fun doesn’t stop there.  My friend and renowned designer Samantha Warren is also a finalist in the blog category of the SXSW Web Awards for her blog Bad Ass Ideas.

But wait, there’s more. Ficlets, the collaborative story telling Web app written by my friends Kevin, Jason and Cindy, is a finalist for SXSW Web awards in the CSS and Community categories.

The winners will be announced the evening of Sunday March 9th.  Whomever wins, the first celebratory pitcher of beer will be on me.

I think blogging is one of the best ways to market yourself and show the world your ideas.  It’s also a great way to get your resume or cv in front of people.

Since I started the latest incarnation of this blog, I’ve had over 450 views on my resume.  When is the last time that you handed out 450 copies of your resume?

So… get out there. Show the world that there is an amazing thinking bright human being inside you.  Give it time, work hard, and people will notice.

In a recent post on Facebook’s corporate blog, Carolyn Abram talks about how Facebook users should not be listening to rumors about Facebook that are passed around via chain letters, Wall messages, and third-party applications.

So… let me think about this…

If you’re transparent about what you’re doing and actually give people real information, why would they spread rumors?

If Facebook actually talked more about what was going on people wouldn’t spread stupid rumors.  They’d be talking about all the amazing things Facebook has going on.

Doesn’t this make sense?