I realize that I don’t keep up with this enough for it to actually count as a blog. I also don’t think that anybody reads this website, or that my life right now is interesting enough to have followers that aren’t family or friends.

My goal for this website is to serve as a central location for many of my online identities – facebook, flickr, google, Ravelry, and anything else I can plug in.  Plus every once in a while I’ll get around to writing an actual blog entry that the general public might enjoy.  I’ve got some things I’d like to write, including a review of a recent wine tasting trip to Napa, plus some posts about knitting projects from the last year.  However, as a PhD student anticipating graduation in less than a year, I’m pretty busy.  I guess it’s good that nobody reads this anyway.

I just upgraded to WordPress 2.7 – testing out the new dashboard and posting this with the QuickPress! It is a little buggy so far, but it’s interesting.

Update: I think that was mostly my fault for not uploading all of the files correctly.  All is well again.

I think that for now, I’m mostly finished designing my site. There are still a few small things that I’ll try and perfect, but I’m tired of changing it around. Comments and suggestions are always welcome!

Also, I realize that it’s been a while since I updated content. I’ve been busy working on papers for graduate school, but I’ve got several drafts saved. Some of the reviews I have to post still are for:

• Flying Saucer
• Kalamata’s
• Royal Thai
• Rumba
• Sambuca
• SATCo
• The Standard #4

So – keep checking back, because eventually I will get them posted!

For some reason, I seem to be lacking the creativity necessary to make my site look really nice. I’m happy with the content of my site – I’ve had fun incorporating my facebook status and Google Reader shared items, and I love the flickr plugin. Unfortunately, I think that my site still looks very boring. I’m playing around some with adding in polaroid-looking pictures as highlights in posts, but I’d like to add something else to each post. The standard bottom-border as a divider just isn’t doing it for me anymore. I’d also like to separate the content from the header and sidebar somehow.

I know that some of my friends are much more creative than I am, so if you have any ideas – please share them with me!

I’ve got the main structure finished! Still to do:

• Make sure that the structure stays consistent and the formatting doesn’t get screwed up for subpages (i.e. Photos, Comments).
• I’m a fan of whitespace on sites, but this is still a little bit too white. I’m hoping to add a little more flair!
• Edit and add widgets, including random flickr photos, Google shared items, etc.
• Get feedburner working properly – why can’t I add my shared items?

Yesterday I decided to actually update my blog at allison-beck.com for the first time in months. After finding that the website was no longer active and realizing that I had let the domain expire, I decided it was about time to start over. I had been meaning to get a new domain after getting married and changing my name anyway, but with school and life going on, I never got around to it. But, now it’s time! I’m hoping that I can actually keep up with this and even have a blog worth reading. My plans are to incorporate my shared items from Google Reader, share my “fun” times in grad school, and include pictures and stories about some of my hobbies. It’s going to take some time for me to get the site looking better, so until then – how about some pictures?

http://www.allisonmccoy.com/photos/