New Year: Status in Brief

It's rather obvious that TWGB has been on a bit of an, ah, hiatus, of late.

That will likely continue for a little longer yet. I've got some serious Life Projects that need attention, in addition to work and social time. So updates are going to be especially spotty for a while.

I am NOT stopping, I am NOT going away, but officially marking this as a slow period. Regular, worthwhile postings will resume on some sort of schedule once I get some of my personal backlog sorted out. In the meantime, I appreciate your patience, and please bear with me.

For those of you so inclined, I've started experimenting with Twitter, and may have some brief tidbits up there to supplement this site; you can find and follow me here.

Breaks And Paragraphs

[WARNING: Here be web nerdery]

Yikes.

Turns out, I've been writing some crappy code these past years. I haven't been using paragraph tags; instead, I've just been inserting line breaks between paragraphs as I type. Now, initially, this looks the same when converted to HTML for display, as the default paragraph tag setting is almost the same as a line break.

No, the problem appears when you start trying to customize your code.

So, for example, the post prior to this looks funky, with way too much space between paragraphs. This one looks just as lame. It happens because I've recently started using the <p> tag, because it'll let my (eventual) full-site redesign be more powerful. But, because everything old was done with line breaks, I need the blog to perform an action where it displays "returns" as line breaks. So, as I do have returns between <p> tags, suddenly the space is getting doubled between paragraphs anywhere the <p> tag is used.

I am lame. I know. I admit it.

My plan is this: I'm going to let the <p> tag posts look ugly for another week or two. Then, I'll disable the line break setting, making everything old look bad. At that point, I'll begin going back through my old posts and formatting them correctly; it will take a long time, so please be patient.

I'm sorry it has to be like this. I guess it's just my growing pains as a web designer. And, since I am not a web designer, I guess it could have been worse...

Meta: Stay Tuned

The Stones may have said it best.

The absense was unintended, but needed. No specific reason, just the way things happened. All is good, and I am back.

I find my blogging habits and muscles a bit atrophied now; it may take some time before I get back up to speed.

But stick around, if you're still interested. Regularly scheduled programming will resume soon.

Meta: Weekend Blogdump

Another weekend after a busy life/slow blog stretch. Time to get through the list of things earmarked for posting.

Meta: Rabbit Rabbit

As Jamie quotes a friend, "there is nothing bloggier than a post about why you haven't been blogging."

Suffice to say, April wasn't a very consistent month here at TWGB.

I aspire to be better.

Happy May!

The Bright Side?

The only good thing about leaving work at 1 a.m. is that it only takes about 10 minutes to make the drive.

And it's not worth it, not by a long shot.

Looking like another busy one here, folks, so please try to bear with me. Or bare with me; whichever sounds like the most fun to you.

Meta: A Busy Saturday

Regular readers and RSS subscribers will have noticed that there has been a fair amount of activity on the blog here today. This is a result of a "Perfect Storm" for blogging conditions.

1. We've had guests recently, slowing the post rate.


2. I didn't have my computer at work with me for much of the time our guests were here.


3. Work has been oddly busy; I haven't taken many breaks to write this week.


4. Tracy is out of town this weekend.


5. I had a lot of computer-related housecleaning / maintenance to do.

So, just as soon as I got up, I started getting to work. Organizing a few hundred bookmarks from the past few months; trying to read and go through the 37 (!) Safari tabs I've had open for the past several days; trying to make sense and fix our wireless network (which the Time Capsule has thrown for a whack — more on that later); clean up the miscellaneous digital detritus on my hard drive; and get some backlogged blog posts up.

A fine way to spend a weekend.

Meta: Whoops!

Sorry about the screwed-up post that mangled the site for most of the day; this is what happens when you forget to close a single <sup> tag.

The power, and the drawback, of HTML, I guess.

Thanks for the heads up, Tracer!