Blog converted

I have converted this blog to WordPress and renamed it The Elliptical Saloon. Please go there for new posts.

New front page - Ike China Room

I've changed the front page to an image from the Life collection, a pleasant 1958 picture of party guests looking over the china collection. And I've also freshened the blog again.

Happy new year!

WordPress and more

I haven't been paying a lot of attention to this site recently, partly because I've run out of photos and other good historical material to improve it. This is something I anticipated happening after about 3 months, but I got such good encouragement and tips from other enthusiasts that I had plenty to keep me busy for a year and a half. Thanks!

The other reason is that I went researching WordPress as an alternative to Blogger (since many have had trouble with the Blogger commenting system) and ended up creating a whole new site relevant to a different hobby of mine: movies. As regular readers know, I've done several audio commentaries for movies set in the White House and more still for other movies. I decided to create a site where others can submit their commentaries, so there is a central repository for movie and television commentaries available on the Web. Check it out at Zarban.com, if you like that sort of thing.

I'm liking WordPress a lot, so I may convert this blog one of these days.

New blog look

Board with the olive drab of the original, I've spent another 12 minutes updating the look of the blog. Let me know if you think it's too much.

Question & Answers

This weblog has largely taken on the role of correcting mistakes I've made in the placement or captioning of pictures. Just today John from NOLA pointed out by e-mail that I had a pic of Laura in the Lib'ary labeled as the Map Room--I pled ignorance owing to latenight copying of the WH's own mistake!

Therefore, I have made changes to the Questions & Answers page to make it more strictly Q&A. Since this eliminates all the corrections visitors had sent, it has the added benefit of making me look like an infallible genius. Suffice it to say I greatly value (and am humbled by) the frequent corrections and contributions I find in my inbox. I look forward to many more in the future.

Nixon in the National Archives

I found some more Nixon pics of use in the National Archives. Ugh, what an awful site that is; inconvient to use and containing low-quality images. It's like mining for tin. "This sure is a lot of trouble. I hope I get a really good piece of tin out of it."

Anyway, I added pics of the Basement flower shop, Tricia as bride in the Cross Hall, Dick in the Treaty Room, and Pat in the West Sitting Hall.

Also, I added a link to the What's New page over on the right of the blog, so I don't have to include it in every post where I say there are new images.

Thank you Santa!

I got Blogger working again after agreeing to move my account to the new Blogger (even tho I don't get access to the new version yet, for some reason). Somewhere in that process, when I encountered a hitch, I changed settings and when the hitch cleared, my settings were still wrong. None of the forums or help or support were of any use. But with a little luck, catlike reflexes, and a nearly criminally devious mind, I have prevailed... with help, of course, from Santa.

Blogger not working

Having trouble posting since I tried to switch to the new version of Blogger. I've contacted the helpdesk, but I'm sure they're swamped.

UPDATE: This was the message I was trying to post for two days and kept getting a 530 (FTP password) error.

New museum look

I've made changes to the WHM site to make it similar to the blog template. It has the a green-gray textured background instead of parchment textured background, and the main pages have a white center section with scalloped edges instead of being transparent to the parchment background. The room pages have only the background colored.

New blog template

I've changed the blog template to something more stately. The change might be temporary. I'm looking for one where I can easily incorporate a picture of the White House or Oval Office.

Update: I think I've settled on this green-gray version. I figured out how to put an image behind the text (the seal from Bush 2's OO carpet), and I made it match the gray-green background color.

Blog upgrade

I upgraded the weblog to Blogger beta in hopes of finding a smoother interface, but so far it's kind of awkward and confusing. Please let me know if things are displaying differently or if comments are disabled for anonymous users or anything.

Update: I re-enabled anonymous posting and added the search bar (searches this blog only). Thanks for the comments!