OK, everyone else has changed their look, lately, and I thought that maybe it was my turn, too. This new look owes a lot to a lot of different people, mostly Diane of Paperwork fame. Is it OK to steal from people? Well, not directly. It seems to be OK to steal HTML, though, 'cause everyone does. There are surely some original uses out there... well, maybe is a better word. Most of it is permutations and mish-moshes of a lot of different things.
OK, I do have more grafix here, I'm sorry, I think it looks cool. It's a lot like the Kansas weather... stick around, it'll change pretty quickly. And, besides, after the first load, it'll speed up for you. I did decide against using animated graphix, though, so lucky you!
Just in case I haven't mentioned it before, this site is optimized for viewing with Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.01 and better... no, there isn't anything better yet :-)
Speaking of Kansas weather... there is a deceptively light glazing of ice on everything this morning. Karen fell on the front deck when she went out to warm up the van to go to work. Luckily, she was unhurt (by that I mean no broken bones) but she will get sorer later. She called me after she had gotten to work and described a nightmare trip. Stupid people out driving, near misses, etc. It took her 45 minutes to get to work... normally a 10-minute drive...
I did add a neat (well, I think so, anyway) trick, having the navigation be both at the top and the bottom on the left. This is an original idea, I think. So you can go wherever from either the top or the bottom. I had to do this 'cause I couldn't figger out the HTML for the 'go to the top' deal... necessity is the mother of invention... and stupidity is somewhere in there, too. No, that's not original...
There is a lot that I don't know about this HTML stuff, but I get to learn more every day by watching other peoples' pages change and reading their source and figgering it out. Sometimes I don't have to figger it all the way out to use it, either...
OK, forget the stealing part. As it happens, I wound up having to figger out the whole damned thing out by myself. Tables are a pain, especially when you don't really know what you're doing. So I started over from scratch, just me and notepad and my HTML guide. So now I think that I know what I'm doing with the tables... let me know if I'm wrong about this one!
Packy spent the night with us, I wanted him to sleep in Lisa's bed, but Karen said not to move him, so I didn't. And I got a really crummy night's sleep out of the deal. And he really wants to play Doom II but I won't let him until I'm done with this... so he's pouting a little bit. I'm not letting it bother me any, though.
Well, I guess I'll fly this thing and see who salutes it and who spits on it... please let me know which category you fit in!
Well, I've got a few positive responses about the page design... now I'm looking at my front page and thinking, gee, I've had that up there a lo-o-o-ong time...
But the music doesn't work now! Oh, no! What went wrong? Oh, yeah... I left it out. Well, that's an easy one to fix...OK, did it. Much better...
A few more positive responses... I guess I'll keep it. I did change the paragraph length to accommodate 640X480 resolutions, which leaves a little more white space for the rest of us. But it still looks a lot better, in my opinion. I certainly don't know enough about design to know why, though...
I don't really know if I like all of the horizontal lines instead of paragraph breaks, though. Maybe I need to design a separator to use instead. That would require thinking, though, and I'm about all thought out for today. On the other hand, I do some of my best work in my non-thinking mode... OK, you talked me into it, I'll start working on it right now. It needs to be unique, though...
Well, maybe not right now, anyway. Karen has come home (for the week!) and we have things to do and places to go. (Not really, I think that we're staying in tonight... it's still nasty out there.) Karen is going to wrap presents and I'm going to check some web stuff out. I just became a member of the HTML Writer's Guild, so I need to find out how to write HTML *smile* and I have joined a couple of more mailing lists.
Speaking of lists... I didn't win a prize with my xmas page. No-one even voted for me... I'm not really surprised, there were some fantastic sites entered, and the winning one George Young, blew my socks off, as well as taxed this compaq to its limits! Go take a look... but be prepared to wait a while for it to load all of the gadgets. Take my word for it... it's worth the wait.
I'm already looking forward to the xmas hullabaloo to be over, even though it means that I'm going back to work. By rights, the next week that I work will be the easiest of the year. Most people try really hard to stay out of the hospital during the holidays. There will be a lot of travel, though, and the accidents associated with that. We used to get a lot of folks in the hospital during the holidays because they were depressed and had no place else to go... that doesn't happen anymore with the new medicine.
We are having the celebration here tomorrow night (shudder) and then it will be over. Karen and Kim are making Lasagna so it will be a simple meal and a short evening. Hopefully, the kids will stay somewhat sober...
Have a happy and a safe holiday!