As I suspected, fatherhood has become my one and only activity outside of work. Thus blogging, podcasting and the like suffer. In fact, they disappear from the worldview altogether.

That said, the Carnival rolls on with or without me. Props to Mike Beccaria for an excellent hosting job on Carnival of the Infosciences #7.

Next week’s Carnival will be hosted by Dave Hook over at The Industrial Librarian. I know I’m a bit late, but please send your submissions to dave at rogers dot com by Sunday at 6 PM Eastern time.

Let me turn our collective attention for a second to the future of the Carnival.

It seems to me that there was some initial enthusiasm and energy, which has since plateaued, even receded. I read occasional comment on how great an idea it is, but I haven’t seen an increase in submitted posts or been able to recruit any new hosts since the original round of enthusiasts signed on. This is, of course, largely my own fault for not devoting adequate energy to fostering interest.

So anyway, after Dave’s turn, I have a week without a host. I had anticipated taking this week myself, but current circumstances make that impossible. Can I compel anyone to host the week of October 3rd (or any week thereafter with the exception of October 10)?

Or should I be “seeing the forest for the trees” and cutting the cord on this whole Carnival enterprise? Are we just not the right community for this?

And before I try to take advantage of my son’s all-too-rare nighttime sleepiness, let me steer you in the direction of the wonderful Carnival of the Infosciences #6, hosted by Mark Lindner over at …the thoughts are broken… Thanks to Mark for hosting.

The next host is Mike Beccaria over at Mike’s Musings. I’ve seen some good stuff this week, so I expect you to send your best to Mike via his contact form. Remember, submissions are due by Sunday at 6 PM Eastern time.

In an earlier episode of the audio edition, I mentioned LibriVox, a distributed effort to record audiobooks of material in the public domain. My time to participate has come and I contributed a reading of Chapter 6 of Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent. I only ran through it once…and it shows. I’d hoped to re-record the chapter, but fatherhood calls.

Anyway, I think I’ll do better with my next assignment: the first three chapters of Dostoyevsky’s Notes From the Underground.

If you relish the idea of taking part, think about signing up for the next projects: Shelley’s Frankenstein and Tolstoy’s Boyhood.

Just stopping in briefly to point you in the direction of the fifth Carnival of the Infosciences, hosted over at Christina’s LIS Rant. Many thanks to Christina for taking on the hosting duties this week.

Next week’s Carnival will be hosted by Mark Lindner at …the thoughts are broken. Pretty please submit your posts via e-mail to mark dot lindner at insightbb dot com.

For those interested, Jackson is doing well, although he has earned himself the nickname Little Mister Fussypants. Mom is very tired. So is Daddy.