Self-imposed limitations
In many ways, it would be much easier to blog more prolifically (if not productively…) if I didn’t worry about hewing to my own self-imposed topical boundaries.
For whatever reason(s), though, I’m not comfortable writing about work topics. As a result, it’s preventing me from engaging in some “blogging-as-therapy” to hash out some of the vocational angst that I’m experiencing these days. Things like “ambition”, a “career”, determining the “best” course of action for self & family, etc… are just not all that much fun, when you get right down to it.
There are way too many days where the burden is heavy. Too heavy. Way too heavy.
God certainly blesses me with the strength to trust in Him, and the comfort that comes along with that blessing. I just wish things were easier and that the burden was lighter…
-ghp
Major renovation continues
The major renovation continues…
The Good:
- WordPress 2.2.1 is installed
- I’ve got a new cruft-free database running, as all the old postings imported nicely
- The plugin purge is largely done and was relatively pain-free
- Mint (my main stat tracking tool) has been successfully reinstalled, and this time pointed to its own database so that I don’t keep losing archival stats data
- I’ve been largely successful in keeping things plain/simple enough on the back-end, such that I don’t have to do much tweaking of the themes that I’m testing out
- Some nifty AJAX-y stuff (comment previews & ability to edit comments up to 15 minutes after you submit them) is in place & working nicely for y’all who want to stop by & leave comments
The Bad:
- I still need to weed through & prune down my archival postings
- I will need to re-tag every posting that I end up keeping
- I need to settle on a final template design, although I do kind of like the Mac/Aqua-ish one that is in place at the moment that I write this (Wed, 6/27 @ 7:55pm CDT)
- Most likely a bunch of other little stuff that I’m just not thinking of right at this moment
Any & all comments, recommendations, or other stuff like that are welcomed.
-ghp
Major renovation work begun
I’ve just begun a rather significant reworking of this blog. Inertia, coupled with some base technical functionality, has moved me to stay with Wordpress; however, I’ve done a clean (re)install of version 2.2.1, including importing my posts & your comments into a new database instance. I’m hoping that this will help me to more easily rid the archives of a whole bunch of cruft & junk, particularly when I couple it with a revisiting of all my old postings so that I can better winnow out the unnecessary postings and properly tag what’s left. I’m also doing what I plan on being a ruthless evaluation of the plugins that I have installed, along with a graphical redesign that will streamline the look & feel of the blog for you hardy souls who actually visit the site. I’m going for a more minimalist design, which will hopefully yield quicker loading times as well as more pleasant & direct interactions with the site. I plan on getting this done as quickly as I can, but please don’t hold it against me (or stop visiting/reading!) if it takes a longer than a couple of days. Vielen Dank! -ghp
It’s that time of year
Yes, it’s that time of year already — Summer — time for me to not feel like blogging as much, and for me to have my annual state of angst wrt my blogging platform. It was almost exactly a year ago that I began the last excursion into exploration & evaluation…
For some reason, once again this year, I’m feeling ambivalent towards Wordpress. Version 2.2 was released about a month ago, and I still haven’t upgraded. I’m feeling like my current installation (including my template/design) is overly bloated & top-heavy with cruft, in the form of too many plugins & too much stuff/junk installed. Junk that just doesn’t serve any real, functional purpose.
One thing that’s also different this year is that I’m not feeling overly attached to the 850+ posts that I currently have in the archives. Being tied to having those posts available severely restricts my options & flexibility, and I’m very much leaning towards making a clean break & starting over. Or, if I decide to stay with Wordpress, at the very least going through & deleting some of the more superfluous entries, so that I’m left with a more solid & useful archive.
Right now, I’ve worked my way into a (all too common) bit of a frenzy, having installed instances of the following so that I can play around with & evaluate them:
- Wordpress 2.2 - clean install
- b2evolution
- Nucleus
- Serendipity
- Movable Type 4 (beta)
- Textpattern
There are pluses & minuses to all of them, and I’m still working through in my head exactly what I want out of a blogging engine this go-around. Much of what I wrote last year will still apply (but I’ve got to go and re-read it, so that I can get an idea about what, if anything, has changed…).
[Note to TK: Don't worry, this won't have any real effect on Katie's Beer --- as long as you want to keep it like it currently is, you've got it. You won't need to worry about changing unless/until you decide you want to...]
-ghp
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