Brettia

I’ve installed my own system, and then XOOPS, and now I have MovableType, the best web journaling tool since Blogger. This is much easier to set up to my needs than XOOPS, not to mention easier to use. My old site was just too hard to keep running. Speaking of my old site, Brettia.com is now the forums only, and I have purchased hosting for this weblog at BrettEpps.com for an ultra-cheap rate that is more than worth the cost. (Thanks to Celeste for providing the $35 in birthday money that ultimately paid for this whole thing.)

Eventually I’ll get around to playing with the templates and changing the layout, but I’m happy enough with it right now. I might even post stories and excerpts from Brettia, but that might be a while off. However, I will make a category for a journal I have to write while I read “Journey to the Center of the Earth” for honors English. Writing online means I won’t have to type it later, so it will be easier to do it on here. Ignore it if you wish, though I don’t mind you reading it.

Note that I will be speaking directly to “you,” who might be you or your neighbor or my imaginary friend Blocky the Goat. Just because I say “you” doesn’t mean that I mean you, but rather someone else who is probably more worth writing to. Otherwise, “you” means you, but that could be subject to change. Language is only effective to those who interpret it correctly, so I thought this clarification (or un-clarification) might be helpful.
I might not be able to post in the next few days since I will be driving with my family to Colorado where my grandparents live. We’re doing a little reunion thing there and then we’re continuing on to Missouri to celebrate my great-grandpa’s 90th birthday. Grandpa Raymond isn’t the kind of guy who’s 90 but acts 200 and lives in a nursing home sucking pureed prunes and eating pills; he is easily the “youngest” older person I’ve ever known, and he still runs his own farm alone (his wife, my grandma Zetta, passed away a few years ago). I have to admire that, since he and the Ricketts family have lived there forever. Of course, he has plenty of sons and neighbors and family friends and total strangers that come by and help him out. The birthday party is supposed to have over 150 in attendance.

So I’m doing that. Then about two weeks later I get to go to Europe with two of my best friends, Tyler and Jim. London, Paris, Provence, and Barcelona, all in nine days chaperoned by two of my favorite teachers, Mrs. McBeth and Mrs. Turner…McCloone (spl?). These events are what spurred me to swallow my pride and get something like MT. I just cannot find the time to build my own CMS anymore. Even in the summer.

I guess I’ll end this with a quote:
“You’re stupid.” - My dad to my little brother after he falls into our swimming pool fully clothed. This was almost two years ago, but the sheer bluntness of the statement and the fact that my father obviously had other, worse things he could have said in place of that short phrase make it hilarious (to me, at least) to this day.