SPLAT!

A week ago (April 19), I complained in my ANNOUNCEMENTS blog-entry that my sidebar had somehow been relegated to the footing.

Frustration!

I spent a lot of time emailing blogspot.com, and checking over my template carefully looking for some non-standard coding. Blogspot responded with a suggestion that I check my links for 'too long' text, and they even added a technical note to their HELP FAQ site.

Last night I spent two hours going through my template, eventually deleting every link and script .. but the 'preview' function still showed the sidebar in the wrong place.

Finally, I just corrected all of the errors I had found during the process, posted my latest blog (at 1am on a school night) and went to bed.

Tonite, I posted a new entry and when I viewed the updated blog I found the sidebar back where it belonged.

Success! Elation!

I don't know which 'fix', among the dozens I applied, resolved the problem. And I don't care. I don't have to live with an ugly web page anymore (your opinion of the esthetic value of this blog may vary). I'm at least performing to my technical minimal standards, and that's a big load off my mind.

BTW, if you see something you don't like about the format of the blog, please email me at the address presented at the foot of this page. Sure, I'll probably ignore your sage advice, but at least I would like to hear from you anyway. All too often the comments are sent by 'anonymous', which means even when I get feedback I don't know who it came from.

My stats help; I use STATSCOUNTER (which reports, incidently, that this blog has been read over 4000 times since December 15, 2004) to keep track of who is reading this, and where they are coming from. The majority of the readers are in the USA, but there are many international readers: England, France, Italy, Germany, Finland, Hong Kong, The Phillipines, Japan, South Korea, and Canada are the countries which I see often. They are referred here by Yahoo, Google, Wadcutter, Publicola, Gullyborg / Carnival of Cordite, Cowboy Blob, and others. (See the LINKS on the sidebar).

Looking at the STATSCOUNTER analysis of the visitor activity, I am surprised to learn that the search engines (Yahoo, Google, etc.) hit on this website for a wide variety of political, firearms-related and cultural issues. That's good. I don't want this to be a purely IPSC website, even though that was the original purpose.

I even get fan mail.

Here's a typical example:

We heard that you are a Blog! Bullshiters logged on globally.
We understand that you are one of the biggest!
& who said that bigger isn't better!

Okay, so that's the ONLY fan mail I've received. But you have to admit, it's typical. I'm expecting a lot more fan mail in the same vein, so ... start writing today.

Hey, that fan mail is a GOOD thing, isn't it?