'Please excuse our mess ... Renovations under way!'

I often see messages like this posted outside restaurants, inside convenience stores, and other areas where construction crews are making a mess of something or another. Once they’re done, everybody smiles and says, ‘Wow, so glad they did that!” It’s a different story during construction, when crews leave a mess customers must put up with. That’s how this blog feels today, as I continue to upgrade the template for this blog. Hopefully, it will all be worth it in the end. For now, though, all I can say is: Please excuse my mess! Renovations under way.”

All previous posts made on this blog are still here. They’re not going anywhere. However, you may notice some formatting and/or coding issues for the next several days. Thanks for bearing with me.

I’d also like to thank, as well as recommend, DesignRazzi.com for the free template. A google search led me to that website, which has one particular post containing a list of more than 225 free templates to choose from. I started browsing the templates several hours ago. I found several I liked, but ultimately settled on the Sturd Template. DesignRazzi.com describes the Sturd template like this:

Sturd is a lightweight, 2 column, widget ready, SEO optimized, fast loading, easy to customize Blogger theme for blogger blogs. Sturd Blogger Template has top navigation menu, related posts, right sidebar, social and share buttons, Google fonts and more.

Sturd won my affection over several other serious contenders, including (in no particular order) Zenzero, Stock, MineZine, Flato, Flow, and F2. Honorable mention is also in order for Aquarius – I loved the sophisticated simplicity – but figured no self-respecting Gemini should pick a template named for another zodiac creature, air sign or not.

I spent a good 30 minutes pursuing 25 newspaper and magazine themed templates from another website, SpicyTricks.com. I really liked the look and overall feel of The Blogger News Times, but decided it might be a tad too complex given the nature of this blog. (Think of it as the KISS rule: Keep It Simple, Stupid!) I also wanted a template that easily loaded and displayed on mobile devices, and the Sturd seems to fit the bill.

Thanks for stopping by. And, yes, please pardon our mess, broken links, odd-sized and shaped photos, etc.