Old Dogs and New Tricks

If you happened to check out our blog sometime between Thursday and Saturday (that is today) you may have been a bit perplexed at the weird things going on here.  I was doing some sprucing up.   First and foremost, you can now punch in a new website name to get here, and her's our web name:  http://www.theb5gang.com/  Isn't that COOL?  It's SOOO much easier than typing "jordanscrossingriding.blogspot.com" in your brower, don't you think?  Eventually that may become a full fledged website instead of just forwarding you to blogger, but we'll see how good I get.

Which brings me to the next item I spruced up...I have wanted to learn new graphics arts tricks ever since I invested in Corel’s Paint Shop Pro software three years ago.  (Yes, three years is a long time for software to sit, and yes, it is likely outdated, but that's the way it goes around here.)  Anyhoo...on Thursday, I decided Blogspot was too boring for me.  After all, they only give you boring stuff and junky templates and there is just no fun in that, so I decided I wanted to design my own web page (hence, the purchase of http://www.theb5gang.com/).  Well, I kinda put my cart before my horse, you see, and we all know that ain't good.  After I purchased my web site, I figured out that in true web page design you have to know something about HTML codes, and that's when my eyes glazed over. 

Still, I did find some very interesting things that allowed me to change our site into what you see here!  All I had to do was pull up my trusty old Bing internet search tool and punch in “create background for blog” and up popped the most MAHVELOUS site that walked me step-by-step through the process of creating lovely backgrounds.  I was instantly hooked, and I made about a bazillion backgrounds and buttons between Thursday and Friday.  (That's what happens when a person has an addict's personality.  It's what we call "overboard.") 

After creating my bazillion different backgrounds with my outdated Corel Paint Shop Pro software, I had to figure out how to post the blasted things.  Ick.  It was HTML codes again, and let me tell ya something else I learned:  Obsessed-Graphic-Artist-Wanna-Be does not a programmer make!  Ick (did I say that already?).  Not only was it confusing and frustrating, it made me feel like an old dog trying to learn a new trick. 
I messed and fudged and messed with blasted codes until I FINALLY got my background to pop up correctly, then I messed and fudged and messed some more to make it fit right, only to realize I hated the background.  So I deleted the stupid thing and started over with a different one…then another one.  I think I finally settled on #4 which you may (or may not) see here.  If you can see it … GREAT!  If you can’t…well…sorry. 

Now if you are like me and you have NO CLUE about HTML codes and silly programming stuff, you can skip this paragraph and go to the next one, BUT if you are a code whiz (that’s not the same as cheez whiz, mind you) and you can tell me HOW to make my template float between…oh, say 1600 pixels wide to 1000 pixels wide, depending on the user...I would REALLY appreciate you leaving a "thunk about it" clue at the end of this post.  My background (created at 1600px x 1100 px) fits lovely on my new big computer’s screen (1980px x 1080px), but looks hideous on my old tiny computer screen (1024px x 728px).  I can’t figure out how to fix this tootin thing no matter how hard I try, so I quit trying.  (Sorry if you read that entire last paragraph and zoned out.  I warned you not to read it.  Maybe next time you’ll listen.)

Now, if you’re still here and coherent, I also updated our various pages (you can find the links at the top of this post and to the right under that handy button I created that says "pages").  I stuck a few old photos on the “Our History” page.  I tried really really hard not to post embarrassing photos.  You have no idea how tempting it was to post embarrassing pictures, because I seriously have a TON of them…

Pics of Cowboy riding the little tiny pony Dusty, his feet dragging the ground. 

Pics of Girl 1 at the age of 11 feeding horses while wearing shorts and her daddy’s huge rubber muck boots.

Pics of Girl 2 at the age of 8 glaring and wrapping her long hair around her face because she hated having her picture taken.

Pics of Girl 3 in various dramatic poses at the age of…oh wait, that may have been a picture from yesterday….it’s hard to tell…she always strikes dramatic poses. 

Of course there were absolutely NO embarrassing pictures of me because I burned all of them, but I hope you enjoy what’s here, and CODE WHIZZES…leave me "fix-it thunk its" by clicking the little white envelope thingy down there.  The rest of you can leave other "thunk it's.".  I promise I'll read them.