"Blogging"?

"Blogging"? I remember seeing an article a while back about the worst words to have been created by the internet revolution, and "blog" was on the list. I have since learned, that the word "blog" is a lot like Kielbasa: once you've had a taste you can't get enough, but no matter how you deliver it, using the word in conversation is always a little uncomfortable.

Needless to say, I'm part of the club now, and I'm really enjoying myself! For the most part I've been standing back watching Mel keep in touch with friends and doing a fantastic job of keeping them connected to our family. Until a couple days ago, my valuable input has consisted of thoughts like, "Yup, green's good," or, "no, don't use that picture, it's got my fat side." However, as I've jumped onto the "blog" (shudder) over the last week, and then taken links over to friends' blogs (I admit I spent most of the time enjoying the visual candy rather than the actual text. If my viewing habits were any sort of indication of the habits of those viewing our page, I guess I'll be lucky if somebody made it past the first paragraph) and just kept going from there, some of my old creative juices started flowing, and Mel let me start playing around a bit.

Inspired by these visual masterpieces, I've spent the last couple days making our blog seem a lot like myself trying to find my teenage hairstyle: changes in color, changes in size, changes in layout, and every time somebody looked away, when they came back there was something new. What can I say, trial and error has stayed the test of time. I've spent hours appreciating the simplicity of the blogger templates and cursing my unwillingness to just accept them. I've learned that it just isn't as simple as coming up with a neat looking title graphic, but you also have to format it properly right down the proper number of pixels. I am much more familiar with another wonderful term that just flows off the tongue: "HTML". The typical comment that comes from another experienced blogger about anything creative I have wanted to do is something like, "once you've come up with your idea, just go back and EDIT THE HTML." That's about as helpful as telling me to translate King Tut's tomb without the Rosetta Stone. However, it's been a lot of fun to try, and I'm really enjoying learning the ropes.

In time, our teenager hairdo blog is going to mature and finally find itself, but until then, I hope that you'll make comments about what you like and keep having fun with us. And if you made it this far in reading my post, you're my truest of fans. Thanks Mom!

Christian