Wednesday, January 11, 2023

Blog refresh is underway

I finally started the long-needed refresh of the blog. When I set up the blog on Blogger, it was initially just an archive of what I wrote for Wicked Local. Then I started posting my content here and pushing it to Wicked Local. I never put a great deal of effort into the design and layout of the site.

As I mentioned on my Brew Year's Resolutions for 2023, I knew the older posts which I exported from Wicked Local's WordPress, and imported into Blogger had some formatting issues. This includes mis-sized and mis-located pictures, captions with code showing, and posts with no tags. 

What I have started doing is going post-by-post to fix captions, edit photos, updating hyperlinks, and adding recipes. I decided to list the recipes at the foot of each brew day post. Brewers and beer nerds can scroll down for the nitty-gritty, while readers who may not be brewers can enjoy my prose.

My brew log is on BeerSmith. I didn't start using BeerSmith until 2016. Before that time, I used the Brewology101.com website and The Brewing Assistant app for iPhone. The site has since been taken down, and app is no longer on the App Store. I did export my recipes from there and import them into BeerSmith years ago, but there are some recipes that are missing. Some of the Brew Day posts from 2014 and 2015 may be missing full recipes. The ingredient details may be incorrect or incomplete. As I add the recipes, I am updating them to the best of my memory.

I have also added jump breaks to the posts so the first couple paragraphs show up on the main page. The idea is to make it easier to browse through different articles. I am also lightly editing these articles as I go. By lightly editing, I am talking about obvious grammar errors. As I skim posts from seven to eight years ago, there are certainly things I did that I wouldn't do now. I am not editing any of that.

I started editing posts from the very beginning in 2014. I almost forgot how much I used to write. Part of my agreement with Wicked Local to host the blog was that I would write twice a week. Nobody really checked. They weren't paying me, so I wasn't going to get fired or anything. Still, twice a week was more of a personal goal. 

As of right now I am finished with 2014. I expect 2015 and 2016 to take even longer. Once I get to 2017, those posts were created her on Blogger and should need less TLC. That is also when I started travelling and writing less. 

Once I clean up all of the posts, I'll update the main page. If you see the Blog List on the main page it is pretty obvious. This place is due for a fresh coat of paint.

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