August 9, 1997

JoJo's Notebook:
So why am I doing this joanna.org thing?

I'm not sure. It's an idea I've been toying with for at least a year. I got a bonus at work last month. That meant I had some unexpected cash on hand. At first, I planned to pay off a couple of bills and be sensible with the money. Then, I decided to do something fun with it. Well, at least a portion of it. So, last week, on a bit of an impulse, I decided to buy joanna.org. And, now here I am.

Naturally, things are still rather chaotic 'round these parts as I try to decide what I want to keep of my old webspace and what I want to purge. And, what I want to create that's all new. It should be fun. I hope to add something new to this area on a regular basis (at least once a week). I'd gotten away from that goal with my old page. Perhaps the boredom factor can be kept to a minimum now that I have a brand new playground. That's part of the reason I decided to create the Photobox page. Hopefully, it won't be the only page that gets regular attention. I think it's a good place to start, though.

What can you expect to find here? My baseball page is the one that's given me the most satisfaction over the last couple of years. I put more time (at least during baseball season) into that page than any of my other web projects. And, I think it shows. I was, afterall, referred to as The Joanna at a party last weekend when a woman found out I was the "real" person behind the page. I get the best email from fellow Longhorn fans. Not to mention family and friends of the players. So, the baseball page will definitely be one of the things I keep around.

A note about my web design philosophy is probably in order. I do my best to keep my pages accessible to text-based browsers while having fun with tables to create more visually-pleasing pages for the Netscape and Explorer types. I frequently look for things with Lynx when I'm in a hurry so I appreciate the value of text-based pages. I won't use animated GIFs. They're too distracting on a page that has text one intends to be read. Why can't people understand that simple fact? It's the onslaught of animated GIFs that keeps me browsing with automatic image loading turned off when I'm in Netscape mode. And then there are smilies. I use smilies in email all the time. But, I tend to avoid them on the web. If you can't figure out when I'm joking or being sarcastic (which happens quite a bit), I'm sorry. Pay more attention. Get to know me. You'll probably start to see the signs. Why use them in email and not on the web? 'Truth is, I tend to take more time with my web writings than I do with email. I have more time to put my thoughts together...to make my meaning clear. At least, that's my hope...that you can tell when I'm trying to have a bit of fun.

Oh well...enough with the serious stuff, eh? I'll probably have more to say in this space from time to time. So, check back. And, feel free to drop me a line to let me know what you think of my new digs. Good or bad. I can take it.

Signing off for now...

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