About a year ago, I took a hiatus from writing anything longer than 140 characters in public. I was an infrequent blogger, and my posts had little more in common than the mere fact that I had authored them. I quietly walked away, and eventually shuttered the Wordpress installation at this domain. I started using Twitter more, and found fewer and fewer things to blog about.

Twitter has become a primary means of communication for me: I schedule meetups with friends, banter and joke with Mac buddies, and quip about random things throughout the day. I’ve met people on Twitter, created a social traffic service with it, promote my apps occasionally, and use it as my primary source of tech news.

So while I’ve come to appreciate and embrace Twitter, it has also brought to light something that has been quietly changing. My thoughts are brief now. I move between ideas and thoughts very quickly. At times, it seems like my internal dialog is artificially limited to 140 characters. Instead of having thoughts like this:

If I built a space ship, it would probably use iPads for all of the various flight systems. After all, they’re quite capable devices. Obviously, their touch screens can be used for interface and HUD responsibilities, but their other sensors would prove quite useful as well. With a couple of them paired, you could determine almost anything about the spatial properties of the aircraft. their communication abilities are very compelling. 3G coverage is available close to ground. The iPads could be networked with an inboard satellite link via WiFi when they’re outside the one city block where AT&T has coverage. And their dock connectors would provide many other interfacing possibilities.

I find myself having thoughts like this:

An iPad-controlled space ship would be awesome!

There’s clearly a difference here. In an effort to absorb and learn as much as possible, I’ve found myself not spending time processing and considering ideas as they’re presented. I have an incredibly hard time even keeping up with my Twitter feed, so the opportunities to reflect on what I’ve read a nearly nonexistent. In turn, that has impacted my creativity. Never mind also having a real life away from the comforting glow of an LCD.

My return to blogging will be focused on one simple goal: to reignite my creativity. I hope to journey into topics of design, art, and how they relate to my passion: building things. There will undoubtedly be nerdy posts about new iPads and iMacs, but I hope to make it much more than that.

I hope you’ll enjoy reading along.