8 August 2000

I'm getting the urge to redesign the entire website.  The journal has become the focal point of the website, and everything else largely revolves around it as secondary material.  Yet this is not reflected by the entry page, which itself is only a minor revision of the first page I put up in .... 1997, I think.  One of things driving me to think about redesign is that the current format is limiting some of the things I want to do.  I like Jaffo's daily weblog of articles, with his commentary serving as hyperlinked headlines.  I could see doing something similar, but my current layout and format don't allow me to do so in a manner that would be tightly integrated with the journal.  Plus I have some other additions I've been thinking about, and some navigational features I'd like to add.  

The main problem is that I just don't have the time or intellectual capital to devote to such an undertaking right now.  It would take too much away from the dissertation, which I worked on some tonight after a bit of a hiatus (a hiatus extended by the nasty computer and network crash of last week.  Blar!).  But I need to think through the design anyway.  The last major reworking of the site was several years ago, producing Kevin Whited's Reason Forum 2.0.  I suppose the addition of the journal took us to Kevin Whited's Reason Forum 2.5.  Customers should be eagerly awaiting Version 3.0!  Feel free to send advance payments.  (Sarcasm gets very lost in text sometimes).

I mentioned I worked on the dissertation tonight.  Mainly, I just went through getting the files I restored after the crash in proper order, making backups, doing a little bit of editing of Chapter Three, and skimming three books to make sure I hadn't omitted anything really helpful to get me rolling on the research for the second part of Chapter Three.  The second part is actually going to be interesting.  The first part was dreadful.  I chatted with Micah on Sunday night about it because he understands.  Basically, it's typical academic filler -- boring lit review stuff.  Blar!

* * * *

Laura sent me a compelling email a few days ago.  Somehow, I think it's related to all of the topics I've covered in the journal tonight.  Here is an excerpt:

Will Godhead get written?  I could say I don't know.
But I think the answer is yes.  F. Scott Fitzgerald's words are etched
in my mind, as if I didn't really understand their meaning before.  "It
is simply that having once found the intensity of art, nothing else that
can happen in life can ever again seem as important as the creative
process."  Nothing.  Not love, not hate, not joy, not pain.  Only
words.  Only images.  Only sounds.  And nothing else is more beautiful,
as art does exist in its perfect mimetic representation of life, such
that they are inexplicably entwined.  Only life is beautiful because of
art.  Only art is beautiful because of life.

I hope I don't waste another minute.

There's never a minute to waste!