It seems much of our modern complex computer driven world is subject to the law of unintended consequence, you push one button and shazaam, BIG change when all you wanted was a poco change. So it is with our “new look” for the blog, gone is the old (not my idea, but my mistake) and in is the new look & feel.

I started the blog in Sept of ’06 after my first visit here to my new home, seemed a good idea at the time to document continuation of the great adventure. Once I had signed up for a QuickBlog through GoDaddy I used one of their templates and set up the blog as it was and then I didn’t do much until I arrived down here (so I forgot what and how I did it).

The gray type was always a problem and recently they changed their program to allow more changes so I decided I’d update the type color to black – and that was when Murphy stepped in, grabbed the steering wheel and we careened out of control into the ditch - you’re seeing the results.

Apparently my “old” format isn’t showing in the new style sheet program so it showed the nearest thing which was close, but not exact. I selected what seemed to be the option for converting to black type and it previewed correctly even though some of the other elements weren’t correct, but what the hey, probably just an illustration right? I hit “update” and it wasn’t kidding, what I saw was what I got, a completely new format with a pic of a dog & cat? – where’s one blue flower?

I called tech support and of course it’s a one way street, no way to recover the old format and so we’ll be in transition for a few days while I poke at the new programs capabilities to see what I can vary, but maybe it was time for an update anyway.

While talking to tech support they had a “heck of a deal, today only” to renew all my stuff for 10 years? That might be a bit extreme seeing as how I have no idea what I’m going to do tomorrow, but we did agree on a 3 year extension and also to move the 360west domain to them for hosting. That will really be an adventure into the “unintended” as it will move my main email which has approximately 40 addresses and will no doubt be a total nightmare to reset all the address’s and all the stuff that makes them work. All of this because I wanted black type instead of gray?

I’m sorry to grouse like this, it’s a creation of my own doing so I take responsibility. I was also “jacked up” a couple of notches by a friend for sounding lost in the last thread dealing with retirement and putting labels on everything, so guess I’ll have to “label” and file that under “unintended” as well.

Oh, then there’s also the joy of living with “the midnight hunter”. Actually it was about 4am when Max (who snoozes all day) was apparently out on the deck and captured a huge moth or katydid or something and brought it in the bedroom to play with. Of course I was dead asleep when all the flapping and bouncing off the half open French door and screen woke me up with a start. Dutifully I staggered out of bed, thanked him for the present, and set about to evict the two of them which I did eventually manage, but it was fun for a time as I imagined a huge katydid flapping around and landing on my face like something out of Alien because I was still mostly asleep and didn’t have my glasses on and was flailing around trying to direct it back out the now opened screen.

And people want to know what I do with all my time?