Driving > Disco

So, a friendly warning about creating your own Blogger.com template...

I though I had all of my html-powered bases covered, and was ready to pull the trigger on Driving > Disco's glorious makeover, when I encountered a series of snags, each one more annoying than the previous one and twice as annoying as the following one.

That is to say, my home grown blogger template is experiencing some technical difficulties at the moment, but should be back soon. In the mean time, I've rearranged the deck chairs on the Titanic and plopped out this old default template, for your perusal. I'm sure there will be mass rioting, tearing of garments and gnashing of teeth, while some (if not all) services are in various states of disrepair. But know this, I will get D>D back into good working order as soon as I can.

Ok, so as you may or may not have noticed, I changed the layout, etc of D > D again, and let me tell you, it's starting to be a real pain in the rear. I lose all my widgets, I lose any html add-ons, I have to redo the janky colors, etc. Yes, I'm whining and yes, I'm lazy. What I'm trying to say here, is that I'm probably not going to be changing layouts every 15 minutes, like I have been known to in the recent past. I hope you like this one, cause you may be stuck with it for a while.

But, since it's Friday and all, how about something special for you? I've had a couple of ideas for some new posting vehicles but have been hesitant to pull the trigger. Seeing as how, my most frequent posting device is "I changed my layout, isn't it the sux0r?" I think I'll go ahead and implement some of these ideas starting on Monday. So, take the weekend off, get outside, exercise, read a book, get your relaxation on, because I'll be coming at you like a spider monkey next week. Alright, even I think that sounded weird. Let's just leave it at, expect some new features starting on Monday.

I had planned a resurgance in posting for May, but issues at the office last week derailed my plans. Our planned Engagement upgrade went pretty smoothly, all things considered and would've been a total success, if one of the information stores on our Exchange cluster had not decided to crap the bed. So, long story short, every free minute was spent working on email issues or Engagement issues. No time for blogging, much to your dismay.

Anywho, I thought I'd peek back in on you folks long enough to wish you a happy Star Wars Day and post my April totals.

April 2009:
Running: 44 miles
Time: 7 hours, 1 minute, 38 seconds

2009 Totals:
Running: 140 miles
Time: 23 hours, 3 minutes, 37 seconds

For comparisons sake, let's look at this same post, circa 2008:
April 2008:
Running: 16.4 miles
Time: 2 hours, 43 minutes

2008 Totals:
Running: 89.98 miles
Time: a little over 15 hours

And just to beat this point into the ground, let's compare my YTD total for 2009 vs all of 2008:
2008 year end totals:
Running: 162.41 miles
Time: 26 hours, 45 minutes, 18 seconds

What I'm getting at here is that I'm having a better year than on the track than I did last year. I'm 23 miles (which could be as soon as next Friday, May 15th) away, as well as (we'll call it) 4 hours away from topping my 2008 totals and we're only in the 5th month of the year. Not to get too ahead of myself, but I may have undershot with that whole "300 miles" goal.

Driving > Disco is experiencing some technical difficulties, while its creator is trying to hammer out a new layout. If anything looks bad, it's due to internet issues. If you like what you see, it's all me, baby! I'm sure I'll find a good one (or just give up and go back to something simple) in no time!!

I've been hearing some reports from various people that my former "new & improved" blogger template was sorta busted. Apparently the designer of the blog hosted some of his images on photobucket (or some online image repository) that, like so many other services, have bandwidth limitations. Therefore, after a certain number of page views, the bandwidth limitation was exceeded and my background would show up all messed up.

So, long story short, I have reverted back to my original blogger template (yes, the first one I used back in 2004) for the time being. I should've known better than to take on a task as arduous as creating my own blogger theme during tax season. Oh well. I've reverted (and lost all my widgets and apparently one entire column in the process), but at least you'll know I'm there.

I'll try to pretty up in the next few days.

So, I've been slacking again. But I thought I'd tinker with some new blogger templates. I'm not super crazy about this one, but of the ones I tested tonight, I liked it the best so far. Ultimately, I think that this will convince me to write my own blogger template, but since I have so much free time on my hands right now (/sarcasm), I probably won't get around to it until about April 16th-ish. So for now, please leave all your complaints in the comments, and I'll try to sort them all out tomorrow.

So, Merry belated Christmas and Happy belated New Year. I thought I had gotten into a pretty good groove of posting back in the latter half of December, 2008, but I guess that was then...this is now. I'm back to my old, "one post a week if you're lucky" pace.

As a late Christmas present, let me give you this: no more posts over 1000 words! I know how I tend to get into "novel mode" pretty easily, and that makes posts hard to read, especially if its about sports or Halo or something else you all hate, so I'll clean it up. You'll get a concise, to the point subject up front, so you'll know right away if you want to read or pass on the article.

This post doesn't really have a good "category," so I'll let it stand on its own, and let you look forward to my first series of "Yearly Wrapup 2008" posts starting tomorrow...hopefully!