Nothing But Words

• An impressive story out of West Philadelphia http://bit.ly/bViWuY #
• Took the boys to Prince of Persia – silly movie but they had fun. Think Aladdin, but swap Genie for a magic dagger, & PG violence for songs #

Welcome to my new site design! It’s been two years since my last design change, which is eons in internet time. I’m using the WordPress Sustainable theme, but I’ve modified it substantially. I’ve simplified the sidebar, and the most significant change is my addition of a “welcome” page. The reason for both changes is to cleanly separate the different topics I write about – to make my site more like 3 separate blogs rather than 1 single blog.

A cardinal rule of blogging if you to keep readers coming back is to focus on a single topic. I like to write about a lot of different things, which can drive people away. I know that when I visit a site for, say, PHP programming tips, I’ll usually lose interest if the author starts writing about himself or other topics – I’m there for his PHP expertise, not to look at pictures of his dogs. I don’t want to stop writing about a variety things, but in this design I’ve clearly separated the main topics so that it’s easy for people to focus just on what interests them. With RSS readers being a common way for people to keep up with their favorite blogs, I’m clearly presenting the separate feeds as well.

Let me know what you think of the new design. In particular, let me know if something doesn’t look right in your browser (I’ve tested in Firefox, IE, Safari, and Opera, but there are multiple versions of each out there, and variations on different platforms).

I made the effort to do this because I’m ready to return to blogging more frequently. My new job has kept me extremely busy since the start of the year, and I haven’t had time for blogging or for tending to my WordPress plugins. I’m still busy, but I’m starting to get my nights and weekends back, and I miss blogging.

• I am *totally* ready for the weekend. Wait, hey… #
• Just wasted my evening unwinding some very subtle and very nasty hacks in my site, perpetrated by someone with some talent but no life #
• I'm looking forward to seeing Bob Newhart wake up at the end of the Lost finale #Lost #

Video – Niaz pulls down the garage with his truck View at Picasa Video – Niaz pulls down the garage with his truck20-May-2010 00:10

I am pleased to report the death of my garage. It’s been a dilapidated eyesore since we moved here 7 years ago. My contractor Niaz pulled it down yesterday with his truck – turn up the volume and watch the video! He’s also going to tear out most of the driveway. The garage was in the middle of the backyard, so the driveway cut through the middle of the yard. We always park on the end of the driveway near the street anyway, especially in the winter (as it’s enough to shovel just that much when it snows). So when he’s done, I’ll plant some grass where the driveway was, and we’ll have a much nicer yard.

We’ll keep the slab the garage was on. We’ll put a shed on it, and it’ll be a place to stack firewood (we burned through 4 cords last winter).

He’s also going to cut down the tree in our front yard, replace the sidewalk blocks that were torn up by its roots, and put a new silver coat on the flat part of our roof.

View at Picasa Carving up the roof is much safer when it’s on the ground19-May-2010 22:52, SONY DSC-W55, 7.1, 6.3mm, 0.01 sec, ISO 100

View at Picasa With the siding removed on both sides, the garage is ready to be pulled down19-May-2010 22:16, SONY DSC-W55, 2.8, 6.3mm, 0.003 sec, ISO 100

View at Picasa Tearing off the siding, so that the garage can be pulled down19-May-2010 21:38, SONY DSC-W55, 2.8, 6.3mm, 0.003 sec, ISO 100

• I'm actually having a weekend: Morris Arboretum with the boys yesterday; emptying my garage today (tearing it down later this month) #
• RT @scottspitzer These images certainly show the severity of the oil spill. Worse than we thought? http://tinyurl.com/2a83eud #
• "Oil rigs rarely have accidents: 'The risk might be one in 1,000…' [but] there are hundreds of rigs out there." http://bit.ly/9Ywl1B #
• Now here's a very practical use for Twitter: http://bit.ly/bhk1YU #

• Totally, like, you know, whatever – a 3 minute Taylor Mali poem worth your time http://bit.ly/8bFTjX #

• Just posted a minor update for Shashin, mainly to make it compatible with the WordPress 3 beta http://bit.ly/aNUdku #
• Having a random Wikipedia page as my home page is fun – the Emishi in the movie Princess Mononoke were a real tribe http://bit.ly/aqAcwi #