This week went by much more smoothly than last week; a lot of people were out of the office on my side of the building, so things were nice and quiet, and I was able to work in some modicum of peace while most people were away. Unfortunately, a number of people who normally bother me anyway were still there, so I still managed to take at least one day to myself to work from home so I truly had some peace and quiet. It was blissful, and I need to do it again soon.

I would say I need to do it next week if I weren’t going to be out of the office later in the week for Otakon. It’ll be another beautiful vacation, and after Wednesday I won’t be in the office until the following Tuesday. I’m really really looking forward to it, and I’m also looking forward to being out of touch with the office. I can’t wait, and I’ll be taking tons of pictures.

I also managed to finish a number of articles I’d been meaning to write this week, including a keyboard roundup that should go live at Tom’s Guide sometime next week. I’m looking forward to that one going up – I got to play with some pretty interesting toys in order to write it. The writing circuit has been heating up a little, and I’ve even been authorized to post a little more often at Gearlog, so keep an eye out for me over there.

I’d been thinking after some of the events earlier in the week that maybe I talk about my writing a bit too much, or maybe I write too many long-form posts, but I think I’m mostly over both of those worries now. I talk about my writing because I’m a writer and it’s my passion – I think some people should be so lucky as to have their passion identified, and some people should be so lucky as to be working on their passion to the point where they can discuss it the way I do. And when I look at some of the most popular blogs on the Web and see where they’re linking when they post their content, I see all long-form articles at the content sources and short form pieces at the aggregators.

I made a commitment to myself a long time ago that I was tired being just a content distributor: I wanted to be a content creator as well. I want to write new and interesting articles, damned if they’re longer than some people’s snack-size attention spans can handle, and not just link to all of the new and interesting articles that other people are busy writing.

With all of that aside, I think I’ve been doing pretty good by myself lately. Next week is my first vacation since I traveled to San Fran a few months back, and that wasn’t so much a vacation although I like to think I made the best of the time. I checked my available vacation and sick leave a couple of days back just to make sure I’m set for Otakon, and it’s official: I need to plan another trip after Otakon is over. I’ve accured far too much leave to not actually take any.