14 September 1999: Fleshing Out the New Look

Gazing into the Abyss: Michael Rawdon's Journal

Fleshing Out the New Look

Yes, I'm finally getting around to the redesign of my entry pages. I'm fairly happy with how it's shaping up, although it is a work-in-progress and there will probably be tweaks to it in the coming week (especially to the logo to the left there). I'm also not certain what I'll think of having to fill in the HTML references for all the new graphics for each entry; it might suck. Or it might not. We'll see.

(I think Ceej's pages use server-side includes to figure out which images to include. I'm not certain I want to do that, since it would suck if I ever decide to change servers to a site which doesn't support includes the way I want them. But maybe I will.)

So let me know if you like it, or think it's useless, or gives you seizures, or whatever. It's not great art, but I think it's a step in the right direction from the old design, without being too graphics-intensive.

And yes, I have self-indulgent graphical dividers now, too:

Friend Rob points out that my assertion a couple of days ago that Pedro Martinez was only one home run away from a perfect game last Friday against the Yankees was incorrect; he apparently hit Chuck Knoblauch leading off the game, though Knobbie was later picked off or doubled up or something. But, pretty close to perfect!

I'm still doing the jogging thing. Sunday I went into the fitness center and tried a different route, which like my other route was purported by the center to be 1.2 miles. So I finished it and thought, "Hey, that didn't feel like 1.2 miles. At least, it felt shorter than the other route!" So, I took my car out and measured the two routes, staying on the side of the road closest to the sidewalk. The Sunday route did indeed come out to 1.2 miles, but my main route was a shade under 1.5 miles!

All of a sudden it seems I've been doing roughly a 10-minute mile, walking and all. I must really be cranking when I'm actually running, and here I thought I was dogging it because of my lack of endurance! And yes, I did drop a comment in the electronic suggestion box to the center that they may want to re-measure the routes.

(Oh, why do I bother going to the fitness center to jog? Because I also use the abdominal machines on my cardio days. It's just too much darned work to do the abs on the same day I do the other weights. Breaking it up like this is more manageable.)

Went in again this morning and jogged my main route. Managed to go about halfway before I had to stop and rest. Getting there!

Okay, this new look has tired me out for one day. More later this week.

Links du jour:

Check out Apple's ad touting the first personal computer classified as a weapon. (Quicktime video)
The U.S. Army uses Macs to serve their Web pages for security reasons.
Laurel Krahn (who helped turn me on to Homicide) is quoted in a Chicago Tribune article on Web Logs.
If you were intrigued by Tony Isabella's review of The Factor but have been unable to find it (as I have), you can order it from the writer/publisher, Nat Gertler, at nat@gertler.com for $15.00 postpaid (inside the US).
Similarly, if you've been stymied in finding issues of the critically-heralded series Pantheon (written by Bill Willingham, in case you were ever a fan of his Elementals series), you can order it from the publisher, Lone Star Press.