Tornado damage:
August brings violent winds
toppling pepper plants.
Don’t worry. This pepper was an “extra” I didn’t have room to plant in the side yard where it belongs.
We experienced high winds, and a tornado warning, but as far as I’m aware, there were tornados touched down near here. While sirens were blowing, we watched the weather news; there may have been a funnel cloud sited near Elgin or Elmhurst- I don’t remember which; we could see area with large amounts of rotation passing very near O’Hare airport. Authorities evidently cleared Wrigley Field.
The AP reported Tornadoes, 94-MPH Winds Savage Chicago Area. Some people experienced power outages.
As for me, my damage/ inconvenience tally is limited to one wilted tomato plant, a few tiny branches on the lawn, and getting a little wet when I dashed out to bring in the seat cushions from the patio furniture. I also experienced brief psychological trauma looking for Cosmo, our cat, in case I needed to grab them and drag them down to the basement. Cosmo had wisely was huddled under the table where he would be safer from flying glass.
Note– I was having some problem with the blog hanging up with the old theme today. So, I swapped themes. Some functionality changed.
If you have preferences on themes and functions, let me know. I can either start folding things like threaded pages etc. into a new theme, or work on figuring out what was causing my screen to freeze loading the old theme today.
I like this theme better.
This theme has a more polished look to it — which helps the impression of the site. The shorter length lines of text (in my browser set up) helps readability.
The other theme had the advantage of indicating what topics were currently most active (via the partial list of recent posts).
So, this theme with a partial list of most recent posts on the side would “have it all” for me.
Allen–
Adding the recent posts is easy. That’s a plugin. This theme also has the advantage that the links to archives aren’t broken, and the blog roll isn’t broken. (Now, I’d better go actually stick people in there. I started… and then stopped because it didn’t show.)
I may look for a three column theme though.
PS I liked the fact that the other theme gave me a few minutes to edit a post. So, I would not have to write a PS (like this one) separately. Please add ” comment editing” to my wish list for this theme.
Allen63– Oh, absolutely. We need comment editing!
The way it works is this: After I pick a theme, I need to spend a few hours laying in features. The paged comments requires me to add some html. The same goes for the link for editing your comments, and the feature to show the html tips etc. So, I need to find a theme I really like, and then add it.
I’ll also need to add Munchkin, the global climate change dog back into the header! But first, I want to know which features people liked.
That’s funny. I was looking at the other new theme, hit refresh and now you have this one. I like this one to.
I notice that the href’s are being shown in-line as a thumbnail instead of as a text link. See my post on the Baby Ice thread. I like it but it probably slows the download time for slow connections.
As you can tell, I’m clicking on all the themes. Some have customizable features. So, you’ll see things changing over a few days.
Lucia,
Pielke Sr. is incorrectly spelled in “Blogroll”. Please feel free to delete this post afterwards.
By the way: a great website. A must every day!
Regards,
Well, I’m browing three column themes:
http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/tags/three-columns
I know I want three column. I want the central part wide enough to show decent sized images. (I can lay in other functions, but I don’t want to fiddle with the style sheet.)
I like the functionality of this theme. I may change the color (that’s done with an image). I may also nudge the widths a bit over the week.
If you see any major icky features, let me know.
I like all the comments in one page. Please keep that in this theme.
Lucia- have you been receiving my emails?
While you are updating your site, another suggestion:
Maybe you could create a unique “bookmark icon” for your site as it will make your site look comparable to others in my (and other peoples’) bookmarks folder. Right now, your site has a very bland generic icon — automatically attached by Firefox, I assume.
I don’t know what the icon is called by web page designers or how to “attach” one to a site. However, for each climate site (and most other major sites) I have bookmarked in Firefox 3.0, there is a “unique icon” that automatically appears next to the site bookmark entry (except for your blog and one other climate site).
Allen63,
A simple kanji character representing haiku would work nicely, methinks.
Here’s a free fav. icon generator:
http://www.favicon.cc/
And it looks like ” 俳 ” means Haiku?
glad to hear you’re ok! I’m saddened by the loss of your pepper plant. RIP, Mr. Pepper Plant.
Also, Not sure if this is my particular Internet Explorer screen but the margins on your site are being slightly cut off on the left-hand side. I have a feeling it’ll look a lot better on Firefox.
I was staying at my girlfriend’s apartment in Lincoln Park. We were actually on the way out the door to take the subway over to Midway so I could catch my flight home when the EWS came across the cable with “Tornado Warning.” Ended up staying another night; compliments to Southwest for honoring my ticket and re-booking me on a flight the next morning!
Terry– The problem you are noticing is with the theme template which isn’t good for the length of tags I use. I’m going to fix that. For one thing, I’m widening the sidebars as this one has skinny, skinny sidebars.
I widened the screen in general.
The trouble with designs that use css extensively for the structure is they only work perfectly for one browser. View it in IE7 with bookmarks pinned to the side to see the multitude of problems. The blog’s near illegible.
Could we have the original simple design until you find someone who knows how to design and code, preferably in a table format – that will work in all browsers.
I don’t have IE anything.
CSS can work fine in all browsers if the CSS is set up correctly; over 90% of templates for WP are done with CSS. The difficulty is that some free templates are screwed up. The solution is generally to find another template!
Can you send me a screenshot to show what the blog looks like in IE? One persons “unreadable” is another person’s “The text overflows the sidebar by two letters”.
If I can see the display problem, I might be able to fix whatever issue it is you are having. Right now, I’m widening the screen a little– because there are display issues on my side too.
At this moment (12:20 EDT), in FireFox 3.0 at 1280×800, the text and this text box flow off the light area to the left of the page. That did not happen earlier this morning.
When I helped my granddaughter make a web page for her business (I just started it, never got in too deep), we had to load of the most common browsers on our system to check the tentative web pages (they were I.E., Firefox, Oprah). Should probably check Safari too.
I also determined that web pages display differently (i.e. things move around or are cut off) depending not only on the browser, but also the screen resolution used within the browser.
A lot of stuff to methodically check to get a “universally” usable web page.
Its fixed now.
But, off on the right side of the page.
Allen63–
Yes. I know we need to check in a bunch of browers. I have safari, Netscape and firefox. The margins are going to look crummy on and off today. This theme sets the overall width using an image. I stretched the image and now I’m adjusting all the widths.
The trouble is it’s hard to find a theme that lets me show 500 px wide graphs, and has three decent width columns.
The best design is always a compromise and depends on use. I figure it’s ok if some people have to scroll to see some of the sidebars. But, I want people to see the center and comments well!
The reason I asked Time to clarify “unreadable” is that I knew the text is off the edge when I look at it too. That’s what I’m fixing! 🙂
Yes css designs can work, Wattsupwiththat is a good example. http://browsershots.org/ gives screenshots if you’re not in a hurry – you’ll have to wait in the queue.
I’ve just realised a screenshot from that website most likely only shows the top of the design. You’re best bet is to install IE.