I modified my template, what was I thinking?

Shortly after I started to blog, I wanted a 3 column template and found that Blogger didn't offer one. I went and looked at some 3rd party providers and quickly determined that I didn't know as much about computers as I thought I did, HTML this, CSS that, oh lets not forget their buddy XML. If these sound like Sand Script with a Russian accent to you, good, that means I'm not alone.

I recently got brave due to some spare time (see: Devils hands / really bad idea) and decided that I was going to modify my template and get the 3 columns that I wanted. I saved my current template (not a useful as it would seem) so that I would have a fall back if I did something wrong (all but guaranteed). I then went deep into the "code" looking for several things that I expected to find (right after Elvis & Jimmy Hoffa) such as the code specific to the left column and the width adjustment for the center / posting column. I planed on finding the code for the narrow column on the left, duplicate this code and make the change for right as opposed to left justification. I made some changes, feeling confident that I found and changed the correct lines of code (flatulence putting you on the moon more likely) and clicked the appropriate boxes to accept the changes and save. Blogger asked me if I was sure I wanted to make these changes (mental note: questions like this are trying to prevent idiots like me from making bad choices). I confidently clicked the appropriate boxes and waited to see my awesome creation. If you've ever tried this yourself and it worked out, then your obviously smarter than I am (doesn't take much). If what occurred to you is anything like what happened to me, than you likely said things that you wouldn't say in the presence of small children, woman, or priests. As you can imagine, the outcome was somewhere between blater pain in traffic and forced viewing of Rosie O'Donnell (not sure which is worse).

No problem, I was smart, I saved my original work right? Well sort of, you see when you save a Blogger template, it only saves your actually work (posts) and a minimal amount of formatting. All the sidebar materials including links, widgets, list, and anything else except the blog archive went bye bye (insert visual of rake handle to the crotch). If your like me and you have a lot of sidebar add ons and other sidebar items then this becomes a large pain in posterior region.

I realized that I needed help or an asylum and I needed it soon or my by blog was toast (and not the nice cinnamon sugar kind from childhood). Thanks to Carl Kilo over at Spark it Up I got back on track with a Blogger friendly template that he found and sent to me. Once I got the new template loaded things were more or less back to normal, less spending the morning putting in all new widgets and links. I'm sure that I forgot some that were on my original blog.

There is some good new out of this, I finally got a 3 column template (good blogger, now I can have donut). If you too want your Blogger based blog to be a 3 column template, you may want to go here, this site has 3 column templates that are the same as the basic 2 column templates already offered by Blogger. This is very handy for most Blogger users, because it allows them keep the ease of use and familiar feel from a Blogger provided template but adds the use and options of a 3 column template. If you want to dig deeper and do other cool things to your blog you may want to go the Blogflak blog where they cover just about everything you could ever want to do to a blog (wish I found them before I dived into the chum water).

If you've previously voted on my current poll question, please vote again as this was one of them many things that went to the technology netherworld during this project.

Thanks to Carl Kilo, who's help was invaluable on this project.

Poll Question Answer

In the most recent Poll Question: "Will President Elect Obama go left right away or take more of a centrist angle." Your comments were split right down the middle with 50% of those who responded indicating that President Elect Obama would go straight to the left and 50% of those who responded believed that President Elect Obama would take more of a centrist approach.

A new poll question will be up soon and as always, thank you for taking part in the blogespheres own format of democracy.

Short, Sweet, To the Point "Common Sense"

Now you can hear The Augusta Water Cooler

The Augusta Water Cooler is one of the newest stations on blogtalkradio a great Internet radio station provider. Scheduling, show listings, archives, and downloads for the radio version of the Augusta Water Cooler can be found on the profile page here. If your not available when the show airs and want to listen, don't fret, you can listen to the show from the blogtalkradio widget on this very blog, listen on the blogtalkradio website and yes even itunes. For those of you wanting to subscribe to itunes, simply got to the profile page and click the itunes icon at the top of the page.

Are you a commenter? Great glad to hear it because this is not some podcast that you can only listen too after the fact, it is in fact a live on the air show that can take callers. In future airings, I plan to expand the shows length, have have guests, and generally improve the fit and finish of the entire experience.

This will not be simply a dictated version of what is on this blog, the audio version will contain exclusive story lines and and additions to what is in print.

As always comments and suggestions are accepted and appreciated. I look forward to being able to have this medium to compliment this blog. There are distinctly different in how they come across. A print blog such as this one can be fine tuned and every post checked, rechecked, and then further edited previous to anyone seeing it. A live on the air show is just that, there is no edit button and your thoughts tend to be more free and well they just come across differently. If you've ever read a book written by a radio talk show host, you know exactly what I'm referring to.

I'd like to thank all the people who read this blog and gave me the inspiration to go further and take it to audible world.

Happy V Day and Happy B Day to the U.S.M.C.

God bless the members of the Army, Air Force, Navy, and The Marine Corps not to mention the life savers and marine area law enforcers of the Coast Guard and of their Veterans on this Veterans day. Every day we are blessed at every thing we have thanks to the actions of the men and woman of these valiant services.

If you appreciate your Freedom Of Speech, don't thank a journalist, thank a Soldier!

If you appreciate your Freedom Of Religion, don't thank a priest, thank a Airman!

If you appreciate your Freedom Of Assembly, don't thank the speaker, thank a Sailor!

If you appreciate your privilage & responsibility to vote, don't thank the politicians, thank a Marine!

We owe nearly every freedom and priviladge that we enjoy as Americans to these courageous men and woman and no matter what we do, we'll never trully be able to adequately thank them. Which is good considering most will never ask us to.

We are also able to proudly say happy birthday to the US Marine Corps which marked it's 233rd year of serivce to the Republic on Nov 10th of this year. The members of the Corps have been called Leathernecks, Jarheads, and Devil Dogs and no military who has ever faced them was happy about it. I was told once that the "Devil Dogs" name came from Adolf Hitler who stated that those mem (refering to the USMC) fought like possesed dogs from Hell. The USMC is proud to wear these and some other titles I won't list on a family blog. They have some of the oldest and proudest traditions or all Armed Forces and among other tasks are known as "The President's Men". If anyone has good information on where the names "Leathernecks & Jarheads" came from, please comment or email me as I'd like to know.

The addiction of technology

At the end of last week I noticed that my laptop was running hot (lap burning hot) and then realized from the widget meter on the desktop that the processor was running at 100%. I shut down all programs to try and fix the problem, to no avail. I did a restart and had the same issues and as a result was not even able to run a system utilities program to check for a virus. I brought my laptop (life with buttons in a small box) to a local computer repair shop. They called me within hrs to tell me that they believed that the fan, temp sensor, and probably the motherboard were all bad and further diagnostics / replacement & repair would cost more than that computer was worth.

I was in UTTER TERROR at that thought that I may loose my computer. I was a Boy Scout most of my youth and in the Army for 8 years. I've been trained to exist and persevere in most conditions that can be found on Earth, yet at the thought of loosing my precious laptop and everything in it, I nearly acted as if I'd been told the world was about to end. The computer place called me back the next day. They told me that business was slow and that they had time to play with it a bit, since it was believed to be a lost cause anyway. They told me that they found the only problem was the fan and it could be replaced for a reasonable dollar amount. The clouds lifted and I smiled the smile of a happy man, my baby was coming home.

What I realized from this experience was that I am way too chained to my technology. Between blogging, email, banking, investing, gaming, "Googleing", and any other purpose I can think of not to mention my iPhone and all that it does. I have an addiction and the scary part is that even though I can acknowledge that (first step in most addict programs or so I'm told), I can't imagine and can't say that I would want to give any of it up.

Does technology make us more efficient and capable or doomed to a future of reliance on gadgetry and the possibility of something made famous in a certain "Governator" movie we all remember?

Poll Question Answer

In the previous poll question "Can Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin pull out a victory?" 68% believed the McCain Palin ticker could pull it out, 21% believed that could not pull out a victory, and 10% believed that the race would go to a legal fight.

New Question will go up soon, and thanks for taking part in the Blogesphere's own form of democracy.