My five favorite blogs. Wow, now there is a dangerous request. I have some good friends who blog. And I have some great people I admire. And there there are blogs I enjoy reading. And then there are blogs I read just solely for the technical information – whatever the field. So when I saw the exercise for today, day twenty-five, and it says “your 5 
favorite blogs”, I knew I had to do something different. I don’t want to overlook anything important, but I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings either. So instead of my five “favorite” blogs, I am going to list here the five blogs I like that are not run by friends and a couple you probably haven’t heard of. How is that for the cowards way out?
So first off, let’s look at Bring-A-Trailer. This site is for car buffs like me who always dream of the hidden find. It is the worst nightmare of our wives. Bring-A-Trailer lists unusual cars for sale that are often in need of restoration; hence the need to “bring a trailer” to retrieve them. Looking right now, the three most recently listed finds are a 1959 Triumph TR3 (had one of those), a 19k-Mile 1973 Ford E-Series Club Wagon (no desire for that), and a 1972 Alfa Romeo Montreal that has been in storage since 1988 (that would be kind of interesting). A fun site, an interesting diversion, and a constant exposure to the unusual.
Second on the list is Write On Edge – “Where Inspiration Meets Community”. I have only started following this site fairly recently, but it has become one of those places that I check everyday. Write On Edge is full of writing tips and encouragement. It is kind of my daily writing nudge – a nudge frpm a friend.
Third we have kind of a geeky guilty pleasure – LifeHacker. Now this one is fairly popular and you probably have heard of it. It is a good assemblage of tips and tricks and advice not only of the computer nature, but other subjects both technical and not. Recent articles include everything from how to make a simple two ingredient ice cream to customizing your install of Linux. Now that is a broad spectrum!
For my fourth one here, I am going to throw you a real curveball. The blog over at Adafruit Industries is all about electronics, computers, digital stuff, and hacking the same. They sell such cool electronic devices as the Arduino and the Raspberry Pi, and their blog gives pointers for using those devices and many others. Seriously entertaining, but also seriously geeky, this is not really a causal “enjoy the read” kind of blog. Although, I will tell you, one of their recent articles was on how the “Goth Barbie” is monstrously successful.
And finally, since I am doing model railroad stuff this week, let me give you just one of the model railroad blogs I follow. Marty McGuirk has a fantastic blog about his Central Vermont Railway. This site is basically a journal following the design and construction of Marty McGuirk’s HO scale model railroad, inspired by the Central Vermont Railway of the late steam, early diesel era. Lots of technical information on there, or you can just enjoy the pictures. Oh, and for more model railroad sites and info, be sure to check out my site at MichaelsTrains.com.
So there you have five of my favorite non-friend run sites. And look, I am getting in this blog post before midnight, so that means I am still on track with this exercise … while at the same time being totally exhausted.
