Can’t find the right gift for one of the nerds in your life? Well, I’m here to help with some links to online resources that cater to the nerdy crowd. For the last three years, items from these stores have been on my wishlist for christmas or birthday. So, shop away shoppers.

1. Thinkgeek
ages: 0-100

You may have seen my last post featuring our six week old daughter Freya napping it up in a super rad Taun Taun sleeping bag. From startrek onsies for your nerdy newborn to demotivational calendars for your unhappy co-workers, thinkgeek has a wide range of geeky goodness for all ages.

2. Jinx
ages: 0-100

If your nerd is a gamer, be it console, pc or pen & paper, Jinx has gear for them. One of my current favorites is the ‘level 1 human’ onsie which I just might have to order for Freya.

3. BustedTees
ages: 2-1,000

Need some hilarious tshirts? Bustedtees is your place, they’re just darn clever. One of my favorites is the cinco de mayo shirt with line art of five mayo jars.

I might be updating this list over the next week but these three are excellent starting points for your holiday shopping.

I’m a huge fan of the Naruto anime (and manga) series, if you like ninjas you should check out the series at http://www.naruto-tv.com.  One of the special powers Naruto uses is the kage bunshin no jutsu or shadow clone technique. Throughout the series, Naruto uses his kage bunshin no jutsu to create multiple clones and get himself out of some rough spots.

This evening, I was thinking about how great it would be if I could replicate myself in order to complete a greater number of tasks over time. I embarked on a fantastic day dream of having multiple versions of Brian Church running around doing things just as I would do them. After a short time I realized that this fantasy is entirely possible. While the ability to physically replicate myself on a cellular level is not yet possible, efficient delegation of tasks will accomplish the same thing.

However, I’m often slow to hand off some tasks because I don’t have the time to communicate the methods by which I would complete a task or begin a project. Next step: documentation. By documenting my processes (decision trees and instructions for regular tasks) I can trust my shadow clones will have a guide by which to make decisions and take action.

Now if I could just replicate myself in order to have someone who can document my processes…

Let’s face it, I don’t update this blog often enough. Should I throw in the towl? Heck no, I’m too stubborn to admit defeat.

I think the real trouble is that I continually delay updating until I have something really exciting to report. Instead, I will make small updates as often as possible until I get to the point that new posts effortlessly fly off my fingertips into the blogosphere (as much as I hate that term).

So, on that note, here are some focal points for me in August

• Wake up at 6am every day (even weekends) to get my body and brain on a regular schedule
• Develop a morning warm-up routine to get my blood flowing
• Stay positive

And here I go…

For too long brianchurch.com has been without content. If you’ve visited at some point in the last two or three years you probably saw a silly splash page featuring my face photoshopped onto some sort of action figure. While that image may have caused you to exclaim “BRILLIANT!” just before falling out of your seat laughing, the humor is short lived and doesn’t represent everything that I once pictured this website would be.

So, I’m returning to blogging … well, perhaps journaling is a more appropriate definition as this space will primarily include little bits of text about my life and may not be thought provoking or beneficial to visitors in any way. This area of my site will, however, include some of my goals and my progress in the achievement of those goals, photos of me, family and friends, and probably way too many posts about how I spend a great deal of time with the family dog.