"There are cemeteries that are lonely,
graves full of bones that do not make a sound,
the heart moving through a tunnel,
in it darkness, darkness, darkness,
like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves,
as though we were drowning inside our hearts,
as though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul."

- Pablo Neruda, Nothing But Death

I've been gone for while: by my count, it's been 362 days – just short of year – since I last put text to screen. I'd like to say I've been busy with some fulfilling new project, or pursuing some long-delayed dream; but in fact, dear readers, my blogging – indeed my life – was interrupted by the thing Neruda is talking about above. Not long after I wrote my last post, I, your humble narrator (with props to Anthony Burgess and the parlance of Alex DeLarge), nearly shuffled off this mortal coil, in a series of events that were real horrowshow. In the aftermath of that, I haven't had the inkling, energy, or fortitude to write anything. I've been surviving. And without going deeply philosophical, things start to look different when you viddy your own expected-but-untimely end. Writing this blog takes a chunk of my spirit that I simply haven't had to give. I don't really have that spirit now, but as I approach the one-year mark with nothing but silence here, I thought I should at least take a moment to mark it, and give those of you who read me a brief explanation-cum-apology. I hope it's enough.

I'd also like to thank those who've continued to check back, or stumbled upon me through Google, or through other sites to which I've posted; especially those who've taken the time to comment. I created this place to share my philosophy and views, and to invoke yours. I'm always glad when someone joins the dialogue. That said, I've spent the last week perusing new comments, and without trying to spin it – or even be particularly open-minded – I've realized anew that there are too many people out there who love to comment without speaking to the specific issues in a post, and who dodge every actual question at the core of a debate, and who do both with malice and aggression. For those people, I have a special condemnation, courtesy of my yearlong odyssey, and the scar it has etched into my drive to become enlightened:

YOU are the people I rail against: you are the people that ruin the world. You, with your prefab, narrow-minded, unshakable ideas, who don't engage in a conversation, but try to overpower it; you, who attack under the guise of contributing, and think bullying is akin to sharing; you, who lambaste others for not seeing things your way, or for having the audacity to publish thoughts or pursue agendas that run counter to yours; you, who litter the world with shameful nonsense, and claim that those who do not agree are willfully ignorant, stupid, or lazy; you, who breed hate, contempt, and intolerance, all while ignoring the rules of kind society, and the basest needs of your fellow man; you, who thwart humanity's evolution and enlightenment by turning the world into an ideal- and soul-crushing meat grinder; you, who spread hate, and take without giving, and consume to the point of wastefulness; you, who want to be heard and have the world change to suit you, but who would never suffer the same for others; you, who can't muster enough guilt or regret to even contemplate an apology, much less work to change for the better. You are the people who, even when my spirit is strong, make it hard for me write here. And make it hard for me to do more than survive.

The Future of the FrankSpot

So, is there still a blog here? I just don't know. As I said above, there's a lack of spirit in me now. And although there's a lot to blog about – including many interesting tidbits I'd love to share about the sorry state of doctors and medicine in this country – I'm barely treading water in my quest to provide for those I love, and lamenting much of what I've lost this past year. So, for now, I think the FrankSpot is still on hiatus. But:

My best to all the good people out there. I hope you find what you're looking for.

A New Look for My Blog

Welcome back to The Frank Spot. I know you were probably expecting another deep, exhaustive post, but I wanted to interject a smaller essay on why my site design has already changed. This change will only be obvious to those of you who read Post 0.5 while I was building the site; the rest of you won't notice any change at all...

I started with a nifty little template called iTheme Techno. It was nice to look at, had some cool widget features, and really spoke to me on a creative level. It was also one of the most frustrating things I've ever played with on the web. Please know that I'm not criticizing any of the people involved with designing the template, or porting it to blogger — they all did wonderful jobs. But it's not easy to ensure functionality with every piece of third-party code that might be added. Sometimes, elements just don't work well together. That's what happened here. I mentioned a few template and widget problems at the end of Post 0.5; I stumbled into many, many more when I tried to integrate Intense Debate as my commenting system. So it was time to find another template.

I looked at about a hundred different designs; each had its own flair, its own positives and negatives, its own way to represent me. Ultimately, I picked the one you see now: Chocolate Candy. I liked the darker colors, subtle hues, and the general layout of the page. I would have preferred a right sidebar instead of a left one, but it was good start. (I may change the layout at some future point, but right now I'd rather focus on content.) Even so, it took me almost a week to get this new template up and running — and not without a lot of extra coding. If you visit in IE6, you might notice a few little CSS problems, but nothing to make me beat my fists on the desk and go without sleep. And the commenting system (including the recent comments widget) works pretty well.

I'll be tabling design tweaks for the foreseeable future, but I'd appreciate any feedback you'd care to provide about the layout, colors, flow, etc. I'd like to avoid tearing this one apart completely, or building a template from scratch, but I'll seriously consider anything you good folks suggest.

Coming Soon

It's taken me longer than I expected to get my next "real" post together: I'm working on it now, and you should see it sometime in the next two weeks. I promise it will be deep and entertaining, and just as long as you'd expect (read: worth waiting for). Later this week, I'll be posting a chocolate chip cookie recipe that I've been working on for quite a while. I don't know if baking cookies will keep you happy until I churn out my next philosophical rant, but I'm going to put the recipe up anyway. If you try it, I think you'll like it. If not, your friends just might. Either way, I hope you'll post your comments.

Thanks for reading, and I'll see you soon.

Blogging from the Ground Up - Post 0.5

Welcome to my blog. Before you start reading — something I hope you'll stay and do — I have to point out that the Frank Spot is still just a touch under construction So even though you're reading this, my first blog entry, you should know that it isn't my "official" first entry. That's coming shortly.

"What the heck is he talking about?" I don't know which one of you said it, or if you used more invectives, but I definitely heard it...in advance...while typing. (Could blogs be windows into the future? Find out in a future blog!) No, no. Let me explain:

I've been working to create my blog for about three weeks now. And it occurred to me that I could create an "unofficial" blog entry that gives me content to play with as I build, AND documents my odyssey from ignorant non-blogger (read: member of the unwashed masses) to enlightened blog guru. (Okay: maybe "guru" is a little boastful, but it's my blog, and I'll boast if I like.) I've decided to make it "unofficial" because I'm not sure I want to count this as my first real entry. There's something so blasé and unimaginative (not to mention dizzyingly self-referential) in blogging about blogging, no matter how amusing the readers will find my frustrating journey.

No — ultimately, I want my first "real" blog entry to be about something important. Something provocative. Something that bites into the social or political problems that are the meals of the modern news media. As I mention in my sidebar, I want to be relevant. So in short, blogging about starting my first blog ain't gonna cut it. Therefore:

Welcome to Post 0.5 (or: Creating a Blog Sounded So Easy, But Really Wasn't)

Finding the Right Site

Once I decided to start a blog, I had few decisions to make. The first, most basic one: what blog tool/site to use. I took a casual stroll through the myriad world of blogging products, and started gathering a list of things I liked. It took more than a week to examine the rich feature set that powered the blogosphere, but I came away from the analysis with a fairly simple list of what I wanted:

• Hosted — Yes, I'm a web guy, but I don't have my own server, and didn't feel like building one to host myself.
• Free — I wasn't sure I'd like it or stick with it, so this was key.
• Flexible — I like to have a lot of control, so I wanted something that gave me control over almost everything: design, scripts, widgets, etc.
• Well-known — a site that people are using a lot; so I can get my thoughts out to a large audience.
• Nice design — a site that looks nice when you get to it, not just when you're on a blog. Not too ad-heavy, not too cluttered/busy, not loud and obnoxious.
• Cool templates to pick from — I knew I'd start with a basic template and go from there, but why not start with a cool one so I don't have to hate my blog while I'm building it.
• A name that's easy to type and say — Sorry Aeonity; not only am I still not sure how to say your name, but most people have dropped the "a" from Aeon. That means I'd have to stop and spell you every time I tell someone where to find my blog. Not intuitive at all...

Now that my requirements were in hand, I was ready to go back and make a decision. I started Googling again, and clicked every "demo" and "tour" link I found. I asked friends who blogged what they thought of sites X, Y, and Z. And I read a hundred reviews. I had a short list in about a week, but then I was stuck: I couldn't make a final decision because I couldn't see behind the login screen. No matter how good the marketing was, there were questions I just couldn't answer. It was quite a pickle. Ultimately, I realized I'd have bite the bullet: start building blogs from my short list, and decide which one really met my needs. My first stop: WordPress.

The domain I wanted was available: www.frankspot.wordpress.com. I grabbed it, and started building my first prototype. I picked a template, selected my widgets and add-ons, added a header image and stylized logo, greeked up some text, and published. It looked cool, but not quite right. The template I picked was left-justified, and it looked fine in the little preview window. But full screen, it looked — well — wonky. I went behind the scenes to change it, and quickly found that I couldn't tweak the CSS without adding some coin to the mix. In fact, I was pretty hobbled in the customization area, if I wanted to keep my wallet closed. There were many great features: it was fast, and slick, and easy to use, and had brand recognition. But, the fact that they'd hidden the CSS from non-paying customers irked me, and not just a little. So, I left my greeked WordPress blog where it was (pushed all the way to the left!) and moved on to Blogger (which, incidentally, one of my carpool buddies recommended).

New host, new URL, new attempt. I went back to the drawing board. I browsed through templates, add-ons, etc., and the Blogger iteration of The Frank Spot was poised to take shape.

The Template and Widget Quagmire (Or: How Hard Can it Be When You Have Lots of Choices?)

Picking a template for WordPress was a relatively short process: they offered a few dozen standard (read: free) templates, some of which were pretty good. I could also upload a third-party template from one of the many gifted designers in the blogosphere. But, just like the ability to customize the CSS, use of a third-party template required the tacit approval of my wallet. And my wallet wasn't interested. "Blog free or die," it said crisply from my nightstand. "Maybe Blogger has more free templates."

Indeed. Through its interface, Blogger has about the same number of templates as WordPress. Sharp and easy to understand, if a little understated. But Blogger supports pretty much any third-party template you can find, or any template you care to build. Three seconds with Google showed me an amazing number of sites devoted to Blogger templates. For every cool WordPress template out there, there were at least two cool Blogger templates. In fact, there were almost too many.

"Too many?" you ask, pursing your lips and raising one eyebrow. "Yes," I say confidently. "Too many." So many, that I wasted an entire day downloading, unzipping, and testing templates. Some were wrong for one reason, some were wrong for another reason. Some were wrong because I was just too picky. It was in the wee hours of the next morning that I found one that seemed to have the most promise: iTheme. Nice look, good color and backgrounds, and the ability to open/close and reorder the side widgets. I locked it in place with all defaults intact, pasted my greeked text from WordPress, and took the second iteration of my blog online.

"Much better," said my wallet. "And without any involvement from me." I offered a snarky smile, put something heavy on top of my wallet, and went to bed.

The next morning, it was time to figure out which widgets I wanted. The template came with four, but I figured there'd be more I'd like. I'd seen enough blogs during my research to know I wanted things like a calendar for my archives, a section about me, a list of tags, etc. Enter the next set of problems.

First off, the default recent comments widget didn't really work. Comments weren't showing up as expected, and when they did, they were kind of ugly. I remembered some forum discussion about that particular widget not working properly in iTheme, and several bloggers had built their own replacements. I tried a few of them out, and finally landed on a pretty good one by Hackosphere. I plugged it in, it worked, and I was happy. I'd worry about customizing it later.

Next up: an "About" section...and a tremendous headache.
In addition to all the canned widgets it offers, Blogger also has a basic HTML/JavaScript widget, that lets you provide your own code. As a web guy, I was confident I could build a section in one flurry of typing, drop it in the page, and be done. Nothing is ever that easy.

I inserted my clever text, floated it around a Simpsons avatar of myself, and published. I previewed the page in FireFox and it looked great. I went to IE6, and "Where the heck is my text? Why is there a blank section?" I checked my code, refreshed my browser cache, chewed my lower lip, and then tried to move the widget. I was shocked to see that when the widget detached from the page (and became partly transparent) my picture and text were actually there — hiding behind the layer. Such a curious thing. I was even more shocked when I tried to move it in FF and the widget moved WITHOUT the content. Could my code have been that wrong? I really didn't think so.

I opened the widget, parsed the code, and decided to try a little more structure — I had wrongly presumed that the widget brought enough structure with it. I built a quick CSS (loaded on googlepages) and cut in some styled DIVs and Spans. In FF, all was well, and the content moved with the widget. In IE, the text was still lost in the background. I pondered for several minutes before I remembered some quirkiness I had seen on another project. I went to the CSS, and specified a 100% width on the container DIV. Bang! Now my content was visible in both browsers. I thought I was done.

I opened the site up to a few others, and the next problem appeared: if you collapsed or resized any of the widgets, the page would break when you reloaded it. The wrong widgets would be collapsed, and the "About" content would be hanging out alone UNDER its empty widget. Somehow, my static HTML text was wrecking havoc with the widget code. If I took it out, the page was fine. Back in, and broken. Again, most annoying. I searched the web, posted questions on template forums, pored over help files, but to no avail. I had to fix it myself.

Flash forward a few days. The problem rattled around in the back of my brain while I concentrated on other stuff. When I went back with fresh eyes, I decided to dissect my first solution. I wondered if the surrounding DIV was somehow to blame. I changed it to a SPAN, and bam! the blog worked perfectly in FF. Collapsing, expanding, moving — all fine. In IE, no more content. It was back behind the widget. Ignoring the snickers coming from my flattened wallet, I tried combining my solutions. I added a styled DIV (with 100% width) just inside the outer SPAN tags, and republished. FF? Still fine. IE? Hooray! It's there! But man, was I pooped. And confounded. What a weird (and completely incorrect!) way to build that content. (DIV tags don't go inside SPAN tags...) I decided I needed to document that experience in my blog...

What Happened to the Calendar Widget (Or: This is the Longest Post About Nothing in History)

Those of you paying close attention may remember that I mentioned an archive calendar widget. There's nothing wrong with the flat folder list archive that came with the template; I just liked the calendar look, and wanted to have one. I did a little searching, and found a custom archive widget that seemed a good fit for my blog. I downloaded it, unzipped it, and let out a long slow breath — with just a hint of a low, sliding whistle. There were many nested folders and some densely packed instructions in the unzipped folder. I had just lost three days fighting with my 40-word "About" widget, and the thought of this next installation sucked the energy out of me. In short: I didn't have the heart to install it. I saved it, and may get to it eventually, but for now, my readers will have to make due with the default.

WordPress vs. Blogger: Who Won?

I'm not sure when it happened — or even why, given the template and widget troubles I had with the site — but Blogger became the de facto winner of this contest. Although I still liked everything WordPress had to offer, I had invested far too much time into Blogger to give it up. I didn't realize I felt that way until I had written much of this 0.5 entry. I had fully intended to cross post this entry there so I could do a 1:1 comparison, but the idea started seeming silly. And despite the length of this entry, I'm not a man with an abundance of free time. So, Blogger it is...for now.

Final Thoughts (Or: OMG! What More Can He Have to Say?)

As I close this unofficial first entry, there are a still a number of challenges in front of me. In addition to wanting to insert a sub-title/subheading under the post title (without messing up the look and feel of the page), and change some of the default CSS, I haven't figured out how to remove deleted posts from the archive list, or comments about a deleted post from the comments list. It seemed pretty obvious to me that if you deleted a post, the archive entry and all associated comments would go with it. Clearly, I missed something along the way. I have a few last-ditch (and even drastic) things to try, and I may have to settle. But The Frank Spot, now firmly in place on Blogger, is open for business.

I hope to see you here.