New Running Website, New Running Blog

This week’s big news is that I have finally got the new website for runners up (and running ).

It looks a lot different from my other site .
I’m still trying to figure out the best way of combining them (or even
whether that’s a good idea). The first site is more of a web service,
with weekly e-mail newsletters, but this is a resource site with lots
of links. It also has several articles posted, some of which were
written for me and others that I took from my newsletters.

You might also be interested in my new running blog.

I have copied the previous content from this blog to it to get it started, but there is more being added to it all the time.

My new web site is up!

It seems a long time since I blogged. I have been very busy getting ready for the first weekend of Samurai Camp with Klemmer in Phoenix. One major task was to get my new web site prepared.

Things were going well until I hit an unexpected hitch. The site that I had developed was unusable with my hosting service due to a software incompatibility -- one of the problems with trying to do something new in a limited time. So I was now slipping behind on my goals before I even got started.

I had already contacted the Small Business Development Center at Sam Houston State University here in Huntsville, so Monday I called them with an urgent message that I needed help in developing my web site. After playing telephone tag for a while, we finally got together, and last night they put the site together for me, using my provisional text. So today, one day before the deadline, the site is up!

It needs work still, but at least the hard work is done, and it looks a lot better than it would have done if it had been left to me. The person who put it together has worked for fourteen years on web site development. I had only about fourteen days' of experience, so the difference showed!

Go look at it -- I'm looking for suggstions for improvement. And, if you're one of the first fifty people to sign up, you'll get a lifetime free membership. (Unfortunately, the membership form is not working yet, but you have a link on the site you can use. Getting that form working and setting up the e-mail responses are my first two tasks when I return at the end of this month.)

Today, Billie and I are leaving for Phoenix. We shall be there for the weekend, then go to San Diego next Monday. That week we are staffing Heart of the Samurai, where about two hundred people, including Trent, will be taking part. What an incredible two weeks lie before us!

From San Diego, we shall leave for Ventura to have a quick visit with Paul, Alisa and Kai before returning via LAX.

We try not to let the grass grow under our rocking chairs.

To your good health and may you always have as much fun and excitement as we do!

Alan and Billie

My First Home-Grown Web Site!!!!

I'm excited!

I've finally finished putting together a five page web site.

Tomorrow I plan to have it uploaded and ready to go. It's been an interesting few weeks getting it together, and I've learned a whole lot more than HTML. It sure ain't perfect, but one of the things I learned was that if I wait for it to get perfect, it won't happen.

When I get it uploaded, I'll post the link and wait for the comments -- the good, the bad and the ugly.

One of the best things I learned is that there is SO much information out there on how to do this that the problem is finding the good stuff. Fortunately, I started with good stuff, but found it easy to get led astray into other areas -- but for this, I would have finished sooner. I'll know better for my next site, which I plan to start on soon.

If anyone is interested to know more, put in a comment on this blog. I can show you how to get a site up in an hour or two, if that's what you want, or how to get help to set up something more complex. Just let me now what you'd like -- I'm an expert on getting started and will probably forget that experience in a few weeks!

One of the benefits of being retired is that I now have time to play with some of the new technology and can even use it to earn some money if I choose to. Sure beats working for a living!