In the morning while the kids are getting ready for school is usually when I write these posts. This is convenient on one hand because it's a finite amount of time that I have to gather my thoughts and put them into the site. On the other hand, this practice doesn't really lend itself to creating the longer, researched, and therefore, useful posts that I'd really like to on occasion. Worse, it's only an hour or two into my waking day, and hasn't given me much time to think about what I'm going to write.

I do keep a list of things that I'd like to write about. Most of these things I feel are deserving of a little more time than what I have in the morning, which is why this list remains so long. I've got a post building in my head about the Fitbit tracker that I'd really get out, for example. But in the morning, my best ideas for short form writing seem to come to me in the shower, which has its own unique set of problems.

It seems like any ideas that I come up with in the shower leave my head when I leave the water. I know I have some worthwhile ideas there, because when I'm able to remember them, they turn out pretty good. But for the most part, something happens while I'm getting ready for the day that puts all of those ideas out of my mind before I make it downstairs to write.

What I think I need, at its most primitive, is a grease pencil. Something that works in the water that I can write down all of these ideas, instead of drawing them in the steam on the shower door to have them fade away afterwards. And even beter idea would be something that could capture these ideas digitally and send them to a computer for later indexing. Maybe it would even be worthwhile to record voice, since - dare I admit - I have come up with a good many original musical compositions in the shower that could be expanded on at the piano bench.

I think what I fear most about all this is that I'd get some recording instrument to use, and then I'd not have any ideas there anymore. Or perhaps worse than that, I'd realize that all of the great ideas I was having in the shower really were only good in the shower, and not viable in the light of day. But there's only one way to find out, and I can always remove it if the fantasy turns out to be better than the reality.

While marveling over the release announcements for the Kindle 2 the other day, I watched a video of a Kindle user talking about how it has changed his reading habits. The thing that he said that struck me is that the Kindle had changed what he read; now he is reading things that he might not have considered before because with the Kindle it is so easy to obtain and easy to discover. That's what I'd like to do, but with web content.

I need to discover things on the web that are of interest to me, but not within my normal realm of attention.

My reading on the web has been focused in fairly specific areas. I have some regular blogs I read that I've discovered outside of my usual interest areas, but I have no way of bringing in new ideas from other ways of thinking. Like my fears for the Philly tech community becoming insular, where all of the same people attend all of the events without really inviting outsiders to the conversation, I fear that I am not embracing an adequate number of outside ideas, and my brain is becoming atrophied with lack of new stimulus.

So I'm looking not for specific single locations of interest, but for topics that I might put into a Google Blogsearch feed that would yield some thought-provoking returns. Got any ideas?

Enough people were commenting on a gift guide from a previous year that I thought I might write up a new one this year. The items on this list are practically all on my own personal wish list. The prices listed are approximate -- you can probably find deals on all of this stuff if you look even a little bit.

Meade TrussTube Dobsonian Telescope

If you read here regularly, you will know that I like astronomy. There's something about space that has piqued my interest since I was a kid. Berta got me a really great telescope for Christmas one year, one of the Meade models with the computerized star finders, but the aperture of the telescope is such that you can't really see the full depth of the sky.

This Meade Light Bridge telescope comes in parts that you assemble in the field, and lets you build a fairly large scope with an aperture from 8 inches to 18 inches in diameter. That'll get you a lot of sky. The size of the telescope causes the price to vary, but the 8 inch model starts around $390.

Celestron SkyScout Personal Planetarium

One more astronomy gadget, the SkyScout personal planetarium is a little handheld gadget with a viewfinder. When you locate an object in the sky with it, you push a button and the device tells you what you're looking at. You can also look up an object, and it will use arrows in the viewfinder to direct you to that object. Much easier that carting a book out into the field. It costs around $200.

Kaossilator

The Kaossilator is a sort of pocket-sized electronic synthesizer instrument from Korg. It allows you to compose music easily by setting an instrument with a knob, and then drawing with your finger on its touchpad. It's somewhat hard to describe in words how the device is used, but the video demonstrates it pretty well. The Kaossilator can be found online for under $200.

Livescribe Pulse Pen

I've had a Pulse for a while and finally got the software update I needed to get it to work fully under 64-bit Vista.

It's basically a $200 pen that records what you write in its internal memory, and lets you sync those recordings with your computer. It can also record audio that syncs with your written notes, so if you write notes during a lecture, you can later tap on your notes with your pen, and it'll play back the lecture from that point.

Its operating system is built in Java, and it shouldn't be long before people start coding custom applications for this thing. Considering the breadth of software that is available for the Fly Fusion (another similar product but aimed at kids), I'm anxious to see that happen.

Born To Perform DVD

Here's a little thought outside of the box. Many tech folks consider themselves "wizards" of some kind. So why not give them a gift that lets them extend that impression?

I've had Born to Perform in my DVD library for a while now. It's the very basic basics of card magic. This DVD demonstrates the required grips and slights that get you to the beginner level of performance, and provides you with enough tricks to keep people entertained at parties and conferences. It's only $30, but it leads to addiction, so beware.

Domain Registration

My DNS bills... Oh, the humanity! Please drop a few bucks on the one you love to help them pay for their vanity domain registration. You know, the thing that lets you send email to them at "billys-own-domain.com". GoDaddy has digital gift cards that work in email, which is especially great for those distant geek gift recipients you forgot until the last minute.

There are probably a dozen other things that you could get useful gift certificates for that your geek would love. While Best Buy cards are always appreciated, the special love that goes into choosing a DNSStuff or DomainTools membership or a Pro Flickr account extension, depending on your geek's inclinations, can say a lot.

Sphereplay - Playing in the Multisphere

This DVD is kind of along the same lines as the card magic one, but is oriented to a specific aspect contact juggling. If you've ever seen The Labyrinth (and what geek hasn't?), then this is what David Bowie does with that ball (except it's not him doing it, it's a guy standing right behind him, who wrote this book on the topic).

Don't forget to pick up a set of acrylic balls to go with this, or there will be no point in watching the DVD.

Algin and Calcic

Algin and Calic are two additive ingredients for food that will let you do something called "Spherification" in a cooking discipline known as "Molecular Gastronomy". The basic process is this: First, mix some calcic into a bowl of water. Then add a little algin to pureed (like watermelon) or liquid food, put some into the calcic bath using a spoon or a syringe, then quickly remove it from the bath and rinse it in clean water.

The end result is a small balloon that contains the liquid ingredient. This is another one of those things that's hard to describe without seeing. Hopefully this video does it for you.

There's a few weird ingredients like these available that all do different, exotic things to your food. I think that being a geek and following recipes (and subsequently ignoring them to experiment) go hand in hand, which is what makes this product so exciting. Each is available by itself, Algin for $60, Calcic for $25.

Harmony One Remote

I'm sure I've talked about the Harmony Remote before. (In fact, it was in last gift guide!) It's a pretty impressive piece of tech. It's not just a remote, but perhaps the best remote ever made.

You configure your remote using your PC, then it transfers the necessary settings to the remote via USB. This lets you configure one-button access to common functions, which is especially useful when your geek has 50 components he needs to turn on when he wants to watch TV.

If you have any other geek gift ideas, please mention them here!

Staring at the walls in the office is not conducive to constructing posts. I'm not sure how I've even managed the last 9-10 years worth of posts. You'd think I'd run out of material.

I was mentioning to someone the other day that I paradoxically - since the walls are plain white and small - have a lot of good ideas while in the shower. I had another one of those days today. I must have come up with three or four solid ideas about things I wanted to blog, but simply lost them upon setting foot outside the bathroom. Less dramatically, we had plans immediately after I showered this morning, so I didn't really have a chance to act on my ideas.

So I was thinking, if I had some kind of device that I could use to record ideas while in the shower, or in the bathroom getting ready in the morning, I could keep these ideas and be able to act on them later in the day. I'd probably do well with something that is somewhat waterproof, but can somehow be erased.

I was thinking perhaps of one of those boards that divers use to communicate underwater. There seem to be a few different solutions to this problem, so I know I'm not the only person that this happens to. But I think Berta will take issue with some of them.

Ideally, I'd be able to remove the notes from the shower afterward for transfer to some other medium, and still have the ability to take notes without necessarily fetching back and forth between the computer and the bathroom. Maybe I should just get a waterproof case for my tablet PC?

I suppose I could just keep a paper tablet outside of the shower and quick write down a bunch of stuff after I've thought of it. Maybe I'm thinking too high-tech? Maybe just some waterproof paper and a waterproof pen? Yeah, that's not a bad idea at all, maybe I'll try that.