Goodbye Blogger, Hello Wordpress!

It was a really tough decision—ok, no, it wasn’t—but I’m officially abandoning Blogger and hopping over to Wordpress. Blogger is the only Google product that disappoints me. It works ok for regular blogspot.com blogs, but FTP blogs- not so much. It’s clunky, temperamental, and rigid. Wordpress isn’t perfect, but it’s stable and versatile. Plus it’s got better widgets, the ability to create multiple pages, and a wider variety of templates. Since mine is an FTP blog (it resides on my own domain rather than a blogspot subdomain), publishing with Blogger is delay-prone, error-ridden pain in the butt. Wordpress will allow me to post, edit, and customize things much easier.

I’ll be migrating the site over for the next day or so, and everything should be working properly by the end of the week. The URL will remain the same (www.bonnevillemariner.com), but the format will be different. For those of you who subscribe to my RSS feed, the feed URL will obviously change. Check back by Friday and you can re-subscribe to the new feed. You may see a handful of older posts come through on the feed, but that’s just me doing some housekeeping.

Vending Machine Freakiness: A Sign?

Could this be some weird what-comes-around-goes-around lesson, or are the vending machines at work just having some April Fools Day fun at my expense?

So yesterday I go into the break room to get a granola bar from the vending machine. I drop in 75 cents (an absolute rip-off, I know. But what I am I going to do when I don’t have time to grab breakfast before I leave?). The machine steals my money and I walk away hungry and mad. I walk in later that afternoon to buy a Diet Pepsi, which, at $1.25 is even more of a rip-off. I insert 4 quarters and realize I don’t have the 5th. So I hit the coin return button. Nothing.

All I’ve got is a $5 bill, so I walk over to the food machine that robbed me earlier because it accepts $5 bills. If I buy something there, I’ll get $4.25 back in quarters. Then I can add my final quarter to the Pepsi machine and get my Diet Pepsi. I insert my $5 and buy the only thing in there that’s somewhat healthy- the granola bar I was robbed of earlier and that I’ve been craving all day. Not only do I get my granola bar, but the machine graciously drops an extra one, then returns my $4.25.

I drop the final quarter in the Pepsi machine and press the Diet Pepsi button. It drops not one, but two regular Pepsi’s, which took me about 10 minutes to wiggle from the slot. At this point I figure that even though it gave me the wrong bottles, I didn’t see any “Buy One, Get One Free” signs anywhere, so I owe the Pepsi machine $1.25. I figured I’d call the 800 number the next day and inform them that their Pepsi machine was giving away free pop.

That was yesterday. I return today to buy an actual Diet Pepsi (expecting perhaps a Dr. Pepper) and this time, no Pepsi of any variety. I push the coin return. Nothing. Looks like we’re even.

Labels: Site Updates, Weekly Run-Down

I hope you've enjoyed this web site's first article. I'm currently facing the dilemma of time constraints. I'm discovering it takes a long time to research, outline, and write these articles. This is frustrating because that makes it tough to publish a timely article.

Example- I am writing an article on the Utah ghost town of Iosepa, which I had planned to coincide with this year's Memorial Day festivities. But even if I devote all my research/interviewing/writing time to Iosepa now, I won't be ready to publish until early July.

A few factors contribute to this dilemma. First and foremost, this website is purely a hobby. You may have noticed that there are absolutely no ads here. I profit nothing from this website. I have a couple jobs and a few kids, so my schedule is pretty tight. Most of my writing is done on my blackberry while riding on elevators or waiting for meetings to start. I conduct most of my phone interviews on the drive home from work.

Another factor is that I am the slowest writer on the planet. I write a sentence, re-read it, tweak it a bit, delete it, re-write it, mull it over, tweak it, then finally move to the next sentence. It's too bad that one of my greatest loves happens to also be one of my greatest weaknesses.

So while I'm gathering info and waiting for people to get back to me regarding Iosepa, I'll finish off and begin posting an article I've been working on about New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. A change in direction, I know. But this article, compared with the recent ghost town series, will give you a taste of what I plan to do with this web site.

Keep reading, and let me know what you think!

Bonneville Mariner

Labels: Site Updates