Redecorating

No, not with my father's garden cart.  I just thought you might like to see that old lawnmower chassis can be useful for something other than the landfill, that's all.  Oh, and the photo's a couple of weeks old now.  We're pretty much lacking in snow at the moment.  Note the at the moment part, though.  It's possible that after the coming week we'll be looking somewhat white again.

Anyway.

My two fans will, no doubt, notice the change in appearance around here.  I figured it was probably time, since I haven't fiddled for a while.  It might change again tomorrow if I decide I don't like it.  After all, it's pretty much the push of a button to change a template nowadays.

I'm of two minds about that, to be honest.

Back in the dark ages when I started my first blog, there were just a couple of very basic templates.  Any changes a person wanted to make had to be entirely coded by hand.  And heaven help you if you wanted to move any of the page elements around... although, come to think of it... there weren't really that many elements to move, actually.  These days it's easy to grab neat little widgets from everywhere, but just a few years ago your average blog was nothing more than a page with some words on it.

Things are prettier now, I have to admit.  Probably more interesting, too.  But at the same time, I miss some of the challenges.  After all, the reason I first started a blog was to practice (well, let's face it.  Learn.  Complete with "for morons"-style reference book) html without having the bother of maintaining a static website.  I couldn't have cared less about the blogging part of blogging.  In fact, my first blog posts alternated between stories I was saving for work (look in the first couple of months of the 2007 archive on the sidebar, if you're interested.  I transferred some of them over here when I started this place) and complaints that blogging was stupid and I shouldn't have a blog.

Blogging's probably still stupid in the long run, but I've gotten used to the almost-daily blather.  And the html coding?  I don't do very much of it anymore because I don't have to.  I tend to hand-code my font formatting a bit just out of reflex (and not wanting to take my hand away from the keyboard long enough to move my cursor to the italics button, I suppose), but with the advent of sophisticated templates the only things I bother changing are colours and fonts.

Yep, redecorating's easy, but in some ways it's less fun.  Don't get me wrong:  I'm all for user-friendly, but back when I'd spend entire afternoons trying to figure out what variables I'd buggered up THIS time I at least felt like I'd accomplished something when I finally got it right.  Now, if I find that something's not working because it's not meshing with my out-of-date template, I'll just choose a new template rather than trying to fix the problem.

Sad, really.

I almost had some skills there for a while.

Sort of useless skills in today's world of idiot-proof editors, but skills nonetheless.






Ah well.  If you absolutely dislike today's template feel free to leave a comment.  Or even if you like it, feel free to leave a comment.  Or feel free to stand in a corner being miffed, if that's more your thing.  I'll be over here trying to figure out where to put the throw pillows...