I’ve made changes to the blog. Again. Of course, that’s the point, right?

The big deal is that I’ve given in to the reality that my blog is my web site and my web site is my blog. I have therefore upgraded to the latest version of WordPress by creating an entirely new blog at the root level of my web site and importing all the old content into it. Anyone who pings www.billkubeck.com will now go right to the blog.

This makes sense for two closely-related reasons. First, my web site has no reason to exist beyond hosting my blog. Second, I never really wanted just a blog, I wanted a dynamic web site. Well, WordPress isn’t just blog software, it’s a damn fine Content Management System. By putting a WordPress blog in place as my web site, I get all I wanted. How cool is that?

I’m still rethinking everything, so there will be more changes. Promise.

-= Gryphon =-

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I will shortly be adding this graphic to the sidebar. Clicking on it takes you to DividedWeFail.org, AARP’s action group on the issues of health care and Social Security.

I have watched in growing alarm as the Federal government has worked to destroy the American social model and replace it with a medieval one in which a small elite lives in luxury while the vast majority struggle to survive. Their tactics are traditional: deprive people of economic opportunity and adequate health care. The ill and impoverished may be angry, but they don’t have the time and energy to fight back.

The root causes of this disaster must be also be addressed, but this sort of action will help keep people alive and afloat long enough to enact permanent change.

By the way, the mascot image really struck a chord with me. Notice that the creature has the front end of an elephant and rear end of a donkey. That sends a message — this campaign is bluntly political, but it is NOT partisan. This is a problem that slashes across the political spectrum.

-= Gryphon =-

Technorati : AARP, Social Security, health care, philosophy, politics, society

Astute Three Stooges fans will get the reference. It’s a mashup based on my favorite quote of all time from Curly: “I’m tryin’ to think, but nothin’ happens!” Well, I’m trying to blog, but (usually) nothing happens. I think the problem is that the more bloggable events that occur in my life, the less time and brainwidth I have to blog about them. That’s sad, perverse, annoying, and probably several other things I can’t think about right now.

Well, so be it. If I’m going to blog, I will have to do it on top of all the events that give me something to blog about.

-= Gryphon =-

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“I use not only all the brains I have, but all the brains I can borrow.”

– Woodrow Wilson

I’ve tried a lot of different content items on my Google home page. One of the few that has survived is the daily feed from The Quotations Page. The quotations range from the profound to the ridiculous, but I find something to think about in every one. It qives me a quick dose of borrowed brains every morning.

I’ve created a new Quotes of the Day page, which picks up both daily feeds from The Quotations Page. The Quotes of the Day feed is mostly witty and cynical; the Motivational Quotes of the Day feed is more serious and deliberately thoughtful. Both are worth reading, and I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

-= Gryphon =-

Technorati : philosophy, qotd, quotations, quotes, self improvement

I finally got off my butt and deleted my old Blogger blogs. I should have done that a while ago, but you know how it goes. Once I moved on the the new blogs, I just stopped thinking about the old ones. I was reminded of them recently when someone found the old Gryphon’s Grumbles blog and posted a comment. Okay. That motivated me to do something. I copied the comment to a new post here and deleted the old blogs.

-= Gryphon =-

Someone found my old Gryphon’s Grumbles blog recently and posted a comment describing the emblem of the college he was attending. He didn’t include the actual image, so I did some research with Google and found it. I’m posting the image here along with the text of the original comment, which was in response to the post “Why a Gryphon?” Please note that the image is copyrighted material owned by the University of Texas System.

Raul Kuri said…

“This pin depicts the banner of the banner of the College of Liberal Arts, designed by Art Professor Nancy Sclight.”

The gryphon passant guards the treasure of knowledge which the college protects and dispenses.”

The blue band symbolizes truth which the college challenges and defends.”

The earth collors symbolize the willingness of scholars to break from the traditions of the past as a way to build the future.”

UTB
xanga.com/neuroword

Thanks, Raul. That’s a nice image.

-= Gryphon =-

Coca-Cola Zero is apparently a big deal, based on the amount of effort Coke spends marketing it. Pepsi doesn’t do a “zero”, but they do Pepsi One, which is essentially the same idea. The fashion industry has embraced the concept of “Size Zero”, which we see manifested in the form of models who are starved almost to death. Despite public outcry, the runways are still populated by sweet young things who have adopted anorexia as a way of life.

What’s going on here? When did nothing become a goal worth chasing? I’m confused.

Perhaps we now have too much of so many things that nothing sounds like a good idea…..

-= Gryphon =-

Technorati : consumer, fashion, pop culture, society

I say “sort of” because I had to install a new untouched copy of the theme that I just got from the author’s site. It works, but all customizations are gone. Foo.

I still don’t know what broke in the old one.

-= Gryphon =-

Technorati : WordPress, theme

I haven’t figured out what went wrong with the theme. I tried uploading a backup and that didn’t help.

I’m taking this as a sign that I need to do some major work on the blog. The version of WordPress I’m running is now way out of date. I had been putting off upgrading because it’s a rather tedious chore. Well, here’s my excuse. I’ve made backups of the entire billkubeck.com site and downloaded the latest version of WordPress. The next step will be to install the new WordPress and rebuild the theme. We’ll see how that goes.

-= Gryphon =-

Technorati : WordPress

I haven’t done much with the blog in quite a while, and I was shocked when I took a look two days ago. It was gone! Well, the content was gone. The page layout and headers were there, but the posts and pages had vanished.

A little detective work and experimentation revealed that the content was all still there, but that the template was broken somehow and wouldn’t display any of it. Switching to another template brought everything back.

My next task is to put back a fresh copy of the original theme. It was my favorite by a large margin and I had modified it to suit my needs.

At least I know I have a local copy. I have a habit of editing the theme locally and then uploading the changed files. I could edit directly by ftp, but that doesn’t leave backups on my local machine.

I have no idea what went wrong here. My first (non-technical) thought was that my site is feeling neglected and is starting to fire warning shots. I plan to give it some TLC before it vanishes completely

-= Gryphon =-