I was getting a little tired of the plain look for this website so I’ve added the banner photos back into the header. Now that my photos are better organized on my computer I realize that I had plenty of nice ones that were getting forgotten about. They are set to display randomly on most of the pages for now. I added a lot, like a couple of hundred. If any of them look really bad please let me know.

I’ve also changed the typefaces to Verdana and Georgia, not the most attractive fonts but very readable. Verdana may be overused as a main body typeface but it’s bold and sturdy for headers, labels and other short strings of text. We’ll try it out for a while.

I also rearranged the site title and navigation menu so that the banner photos would cooperate better with WordPress’s default parent theme. I did away with trying to display the excerpts of the “short form” posts in the sidebar of the home page. They will display the post titles again and you will have to follow the link for the rest of the post.

I used grays to be more versatile with different header photos.

Adam’s artificial habitat was way overdue for some restyling. For almost a year, it looked barely different from the default theme. Now it’s less barely, but I like the grays with the colorful header photo. I still have a number of things I want to change, but this will do for now.

The header photo is of the children’s activity table at the Contemporary Museum of Art in Chicago, taken during our visit last September.

If you noticed the Snack Bus theme is gone, it’s because I need to bring my template files up to date with the new version of WordPress. I’m not tired of the snack bus already, but I decided to make my website work better before I make it look better. I may bring it back later.

In the meantime I’ll be using  the default WordPress theme, which is what you see now. The picture in the header is mine, though. It’s from the tile wainscoting inside the Colegio Nacional de Monsterrat in Córdoba, Argentina.

Instead of writing I’ve been updating the site’s appearance. The solemn “Capuchinos” theme is no more.

The Capuchinos themes was based on a church I like in Argentina.

The new theme, “Snack Bus” is based on my photo from Maui. I like it because it is cheerful and has lots of colors to play with. I still have a punch-list of corrections to make but most of basic changes are out of the way.

One of the bigger functional changes I want to make is uncluttering the sidebar by making the menus collapsible. This will allow me to add more menu choices without forcing the reader to scroll all the way down. I also hope to incorporate the content from my remaining static pages (“About” and “Contact”) into the sidebar somehow, and eliminate the site map.

I’ve also given up on a photo gallery page for now. WordPress just isn’t cut out for it. Follow the “Photos” tag to find posts with photographs.

I noticed I hadn’t gotten any e-mails through this site in a long time. This is probably because my readership is nearly nonexistent, but also because the form on the Contact page no longer works.

I’ve installed a new contact form. I know it works with Firefox 3.5. If you have trouble with the form in Internet Explorer 8, try viewing the page in compatibility mode. I’m still working out some kinks.

I apologize if anyone tried to contact me and wasn’t able to or didn’t get a response. If the contact form still doesn’t work, please let me know using the comment form for this entry, below.

Thanks for your patience.