Comments board feed display 

I might try activeRenderer for a while instead of Grazr. I like Grazr a lot but I wish it was more customizable.

Template ready 

Here are the files you need if you want to use my blue and yellow cone template as is or as a jumping-off point:

template.opml

stylesheet.opml

headergraphic.jpg

Here are the files and instructions packaged for Windows users. It includes a layered Photoshop file with some of the variations of the cone photo: conetemplate.exe

I'll make a web page with instructions and links to the files, too. Probably not today.

It just occurred to me that the cone photo may not be mine to redistribute. I paid a dollar for it at Dreamstime. I can contact the photographer and see about it. Or you could join Dreamstime and get your own copy of it.

If you try it and find some funky CSS, please tell me about it. I'm not a real designer, you know. I get pressed into the role in working for non-profits where you often have to do everything, and do the best I can.

Well that took longer than I thought it would. Bye-bye cone blog. It'll start disappearing bit by bit over the next few days. Some of the midpoints are going to be really really ugly, like Renee Zellweger's Bridget Jones accent before she nailed it in the end. So, withhold judgment.

Access was not bad today 

The opml.org server was going along pretty well today until a few minutes ago.

Now it's OK.

Now it's not.

Oh boy, gone off on a chrome tangent 

This could be the dumbest idea since I wanted to make a mobile out of broken reading glasses. That soup I made last week? I just sprayed the soup bone with chrome paint. I have little idea why, except a tiny notion that a collection of objects never meant to be chromed might be funny.

Header graphic 

I'll include the layered Photoshop file in case anybody might want the different angles on the cone.

OK 

I'm sick of this now.

Watching the three little geeks 

It's been interesting to watch these kids trying to put a computer together. Aaron's friends are definitely hardware geeks. Dads are both former engineers at Lucent. He is lucky these guys have nothing much else to do this month and are so into the puzzle and challenge. He sits mostly on the sidelines wishing he could play WOW, and I suppose must be learning something.

My older son is good at hardware stuff, and was always my personal helpdesk. The little guy's brand of geekly sensibility runs to softer pursuits, for example he'll be president of the high school Latin Club this fall, his senior year. That's not going to do a thing for me when I have trouble with my network.

Of course I love them both to death. And, after years of pounding on each other they've turned out to be friends. That's really nice to see.

Taking little breaks from being competent 

Actually, I know what is going to happen and it bugs the shit out of me. When the network goes down, I'll figure it out myself. Because that's what you do when you don't have people to do things for you anymore. I wish I could shake the suspicion that my gender has something to do with my willingness to let people take care of things for me.

Let me give you an example of this, then you tell me if you think a guy would be as likely to become such a case. A woman, now dead, she'd be maybe 80-85 now, was left to care for her 6 children ages 1-13 when her husband died at 40 something. No life insurance, just social security. She learned to drive but suddenly wasn't able to drive when the oldest kid became able to. And other hyperdependent things I can stomach going into. God knows if there ever was a reason to fall apart, hers would be it, but still it bugs me. Maybe it wouldn't happen these days?

I suppose my fear is that I'm like my former mother-in-law, but it's unfounded. I'm able to talk back to myself when I hear that voice (something an online friend wisely reminded me to do recently). I'm not her.

Just the opposite in fact. I'm actually super competent at this life stuff, so much so that people lean on me and expect things from me, more than the other way around. Example: when my grandpa was in the hospital dying, but he didn't know it, he kept telling everybody that when Amy Lou got there, she'd make sure he got to go home. Maybe it's the burden of that kind of expectation to be always the person who swoops in to take care of things that makes me lapse into dependent mode in small ways when I get the chance. Just taking little breaks from competence.

Whoa, what was that? 

Open up a litttle Amy, wouldya?