Just got back from spending Thanksgiving Day in Kansas City with my mom. There was turkey and there was trimmings and it was good.

While there, I got most of the redesign for my Web site done. Unfortunately, when I went to test it, I discovered three problems:

1. There are browser compatibility issues that I need to fix, most important of which is…
2. IE really does a number on the page and it looks horrible. Mozilla, Firefox and Opera do OK, but IE really does a number on the page. It looks horrible.
3. I’m having trouble getting the Perl module I need installed at my ISP.

For the Perl issue, I may be able to work around it, but it will add production time in getting new stories on-line. That’s why I wanted to use this new method.

As for the browser compatibility, that’s a big setback. It just won’t do to have the site broken in a major browser.

I got to spend the better part of the weekend undisturbed in the basement. I used the time to break down one of the old tables (weep) and to wire a significant portion of the new layout.

The main lines along the East wall and the South wall are powered and I spent a couple hours just running engines back and forth, pulling short drags of cars. Sadly, it can’t go very far yet, but at least it’s a start.

The old table was along the north wall. Teardown started because I wanted a couple of the switch machines on that table. Once that was done, I just kept going until I had the whole thing torn down. It was preventing me from getting at the wall to hang new tables, so it’s no big deal.

I’ve been working on a redesign of the site for quite a while now. The major element was the program that handles the formatting for In Other Words. In a major breakthrough, I have it done with the exception of one minor bug and a tiny formatting change. I should be able to have the new version on-line by Thanksgiving.

In some ways it will be a major departure from what you see now, but not earth shattering. The main goal was to incorporate some new Web design techniques I’ve learned in the last couple years and simplify the code a bit making maintenance easier.

My ultimate goal is to go all CSS Zen Garden on the place and offer several different layouts that visitors can choose. But that’s quite a ways out yet—the new layout comes first.