Category: Jake

Going through and deleting a few old feeds on Bend Blogs today (there are a lot of ones that have gone private or haven’t updated in over a year, so expect many feeds to disappear), but a couple things that you might notice over there:

No Categories Tab: I’ve gotten rid of the “Categories” tab on the left side, as I never seemed to be able to get it to work right with feeds that had categories. Everything’s going to tags instead. Speaking of tags, remember you can submit your own tags to any entry on Bend Blogs — like I added the tag Liquor to this post. When you click on the [edit] link to submit a tag, it will offer suggestions, if it can, based on del.icio.us tags, if available.
• I’ve added ads in a few more spots. Sorry, but it has to be done. The site’s getting more and more popular, and the server’s getting pushed harder and harder.
• Aforementioned removal of feeds (work in progress).
• But the biggest thing (and the thing I’m probably going to have to tweak a bit to make it less MySQL-server intensive) is the feeds list on the left side now sorts by the latest updated blogs (or at least close to it — it all depends on when the feed’s latest item was grabbed), making it far easier to keep track of blogs that update locally more often than the rest (their www and syndicating feeds links are right there).
• A few tweaks here and there to make the site easier to browse in general.

If you have any more bright ideas or suggestions, feel free to post a comment here (and yes I know the design is a bit stale, but haven’t had time to really get down and dirty with the CSS).

My wife’s uncle always tells the best stories, and he’s finally gotten around to writing a book (his family’s been nagging him for quite a while). I haven’t read the book yet, but considering the stories he tells of his childhood, I’m sure it’s a great read. And anybody who’s interested in local history (he grew up in Sisters) will enjoy it. So go buy, buy, buy so he’ll write the follow up he’s promising. Here’s the book’s description on Amazon:

The Musings of an ex-Moleque by Jeff Smith Jeff Smith’s life can easily be summarized by two distinct periods of time. “The Musings of an ex-Moleque” tell the story of the first period. This time-frame is the first eighteen years of his life where Jeff truly was the product of his family’s “old school” influence and the small town rural environment in which he was raised. In the 1950’s and 60’s, Sisters, Oregon was a small mill town of about 500 souls. Being situated in the very heart of Oregon and nestled at the foot of the Cascade Mountain Range, it offered a unique setting for a young lad to live a life of unfettered adventure, joy, and security. Jeff’s story is the story of perhaps thousands of young American lads raised in a bygone era, one which probably will never be enjoyed again as our culture continues to change so drastically, leaving no room for little rascals to run free and wild. Author’s Biography Jeff Smith was born on August 11th in the year 1952 in Redmond, Oregon. Jeff was the last of six children born to William Ray and Naomi Belle Smith. Though born in Redmond, Jeff was raised in the nearby town of Sisters. As Sisters was so small it had no hospital, so most babies in those days were born either in Redmond’s newly built hospital or in neighboring Bend. Jeff was definitely a product of his familial upbringing and the small town rural environment in which he spent the first eighteen years of his adventurous life. Shortly after high school graduation in 1970 Jeff entered a missionary training center in Bend, Oregon in pursuit of his dream of being a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in Brazil. That dream was interrupted by a two year tour of duty in the US Army, having been drafted number 34 in the end of the old lottery draft system.

OK, done with the cheap plug.