June 23, 2008 - Two Short Stories
I have uploaded two short stories I wrote several years ago, one from 2001 and one from 2002, to the Writing section. They are called "Road" and "What Do You Do When the Lights Go Out?".
"Road" is a first-person account, written as a narrative history rather than a series of ongoing events. It's about a small Southern town that loses its identity and purpose after a highway bypass is built and new commercial development springs up under the town's name. There are many stories about towns that died with new highway construction, of course. This story focuses on the scenario in which the town is virtually taken over.
"What Do You Do When the Lights Go Out?" is a dark, cynical, rather-unpleasant-to-read story set in Florida in a college apartment complex. Its main theme is a pessimistic outlook on the progress of human relationships.
What, since when does any Southern writer have anything positive to write about?
April 4, 2008 - Cleanup and Tweaks
I've made some changes to much of the site. First, I've fixed the content panel (the box you're reading) on the Art and Tolkien sections so that it adjusts its size according to what it's displaying. Unfortunately it does not shrink, and from what I've been reading, I'm not sure it's possible to make it shrink, but this is still an improvement. The content panel encloses an HTML iframe on those two sections, unlike everywhere else.
I've also scripted the low-markup subpages, such as this one, so that they detect if they are being viewed inside their frames, and if they aren't, to display a link back to the main page for their category. My web stats have indicated that some of these pages are being directly linked, and I want potential readers to realize that there is a lot more to the site.
Finally, you'll observe that the "Currently" panel actually is current. I added a date script and a weather gadget to it.