I've Changed The Look At The Log Blog

I'm not totally thrilled with the way the top of the blog looks.  What I need to do is play around with that picture of the Grumpy Old Men at Pic Monkey to see what I can come up with there.

Bass Pundit Blog Reading Tip

Find something that catches your interest on Bass Pundit? If so, at the bottom of the post there are these thing called "Labels" which are hyperlinks to other Bass Pundit posts that deal with the same subject. On this post my "Labels" are Bass blogging, Blogging, Blogger.

The post below this one has the Label Vikings, where when clicked will bring up all the posts I've ever done about the MN Vikings football team.

Using labels will enhance your Bass Pundit blog reading experience because I have so many posts on so many different things. Unfortunately I didn't put labels in for my first several years of blogging. One of my projects this winter is to get labels put with old posts.

Change Is Coming????

(No this isn't about politics)

Now that I think I have figured a couple of things out, I am seriously considering upgrading this blog to the newer Blogger Layout format instead of keeping it in the old Template format that it is now. It would be nice if there was a way I could change it "in draft" and then make a decision when I see what I end up with. Come to think of it, I think there is a way I can do just that, sort of.

I think I will dabble.

Update: I have now fiddled and it looks like if I decide to make the change I am in for a lot of work on the sidebar. How much work isn't clear because I just don't know how much stuff will transfer if I make the change. I definitely will not be doing anything until the snow flies and the lakes freeze.

This is what I came up with in my dabbling... What do you think?

Another Update: I've looked into some things that I thought would be short cuts for if and when I do change, but unfortunately things don't work like I think they should in terms of presentation and spacing. Frustrating because it means changing will be a lot more work.

Now Reading...

After 5 plus years of Blogging from the seat of my pants, I am now going to put in some effort to actually learn about how the blogging craft is properly done. I wish I would have read a book like this before I started in 2004, because I have made some mistakes along the way and still don't really know a whole lot if anything about the more advanced elements of blogging and blog promotion. The book I'm reading now, Google Blogger for Dummies, wasn't printed until 2009, so it wasn't around when I first started blogging. I also will be reading The Rational Guide to Google Blogger which has a copyright date from 2006, which I hope puts the book under the perview of old blogger templates like I use for this blog.

Update: I am still at the beginning of the book, but I have learned some things even out of the basic stuff.

I did not know this... (Inside BP blogging)

I just noticed tonight that I can add "Labels" that identify and categorise my blog posts. For some reason I was under the impression that I couldn't do that. I wonder if this is something I missed right from the start or if this is something that got added later that I just never noticed.

Man do I feel stupid. I think I am going to make a project of putting labels on all my posts in the past. If I do several a day, then I should have all posts done by sometime next winter.

Update: I also have just got around to doing something about my archives. While I didn't find a way to put in the archive format I wanted. I did discover the code that is available to have your archives come in a drop box that takes up almost no space on the sidebar. I elected to keep the old long archive list at the bottom of the right sidebar and put a couple of the archive drop boxes in the sidebar so when I want to hunt the archives a box and therefore search is handy.

The Quest for 2000!

March 2009 is going to set a new record for "visits" to my blog as tabulated by Sitemeter. Right now I am at 1963 visits for the month. I will most likely break the 2000 visits in a month barrier tomorrow. Visits are recorded everytime someone loads Bass Pundit; A single person can be counted for more than 1 visit in a given day. I don't know the reason, but Bass Pundit has seen a huge surge in visits from the normal range of 2009 (1100-500) in the past 2 months. Last month I set a new record of 1753 visits which was a 500 plus visit jump from the previous record month.

A couple of days ago I purchased a couple of books about Blogger on Amazon.com:
Google Blogger For Dummies
The Rational Guide to Google Blogger.

I have been at this blogging thing since November 2004 but there is a lot about blogging that I don't think I know or understand, so hopefully these books will give me a clue. I like the fact that The Rational Guide to Google Blogger is an older book because this blog is in the older Blogger Template mode. With fishing season rapidly approaching I don't know where I am going to find the time to read and blog at the same time.

Bass Pundit Blog Franchis Empire

Tah Dah!
Brilliant! (I love this commercial)
I'm on a roll today. I was laying in bed thinking about how in the world I can keep this blog uncluttered while still including all the stuff, I plan on putting into it. The problem is that blogging at least as I know is a single web page operation which means major clutter and difficulty in indexing topics. Now there are some blogging formats out there that make indexing easy, but I don't think basic Blogger is one of them.

Then it hit me. Through the magic of linking and the generosity of Blogger, the BP can have a Blog Franchise Empire or (B.P.B.F.E.). I can keep this blog uncluttered by starting up multiple BP blogs to handle various subject matter, and then use this as the "home page" or main directory, index, or whatever.

Thus The BP will soon be adding blogs for: Fantasy Bass Fishing, A BP 2005 Fishing Log, Tracking the BP's tournament fishing, family stuff, etc. You show up here, where you get a synopsis and link to the new stuff and if you are interested than you go there. Brilliant!, I tell you Brilliant!
(of coarse setting it up will take some time but in the end this should save me some hassle and make the blog much better. Or so I think)


"Let's hear a laugh for the man of the world Who thinks he can make things work Tried to build the New Jerusalem And ended up with New York. Ha Ha Ha."
Laughter by Bruce Cockburn