Firstly, you’ll notice a new gradient effect when you scroll to the top and bottom of the site. That was fun to do, but much more time consuming than I first expected. If you look at the image to the lower left, you’ll see it looks pretty simple. Just some funky mountains, a sun, and some fuzzies. It has two colors: gray and black. Because the background is transparent, when you scroll over the black gradient at the bottom, the black images get hidden while new images appear. I learned the technique from a great website called “CSS-Tricks“.

(I may have forgotten to mention that I’ll be experimenting quite a lot here with CSS!)

Also, I’ve updated the banner image at the top. Now, the picture is of my creation (aside from the grass, which comes from the original graphics provided with the theme by LonelyTree). That funky tree thing was from an ink drawing I did almost 15 years ago. I scanned it, cleaned it up, and smacked it between two hills.

I currently maintain two blogs (this one and a professional one), a Twitter account, a Facebook profile, a LinkedIn account, and I’m also a member of several other forums and newsgroups. Loosely calculated, I think I spend about 1.5 hours a day in this space. And I should mention that most of this time is spent early in the mornings before the kids wake.

But here’s my justification: For one, Facebook is necessary! It is the only way that I can keep in touch with more than 100 close friends and family. Without FB, I would feel completely out of touch. I live in Europe after all and most of my friends and all of my family live in the US.

On Twitter, I’m able to post links and interesting tidbits about the economy, politics, and technology with an eye towards marketing for my professional blog. On GrengaMa, I can post more personal accounts, musings, and rants on the blog without interference or contamination with the people who care only about what I have to say professionally.

All of these things to me are necessary to stay connected. But at what cost? Should I cut down? I’d like to know your thoughts if you have any on the matter.

As most of you who visit this site know, I am a musician. I’ve been in a few very fun bands over the years, which I’ll certainly talk about. But I’m not playing in bands anymore; instead, I am focused on songwriting and recording. I’ve also done some sketching, writing, and photography, with more to come. Lately, I’ve also been itching to write a novel (or three), so you can expect some thoughts and ideas posted on that subject as well.

Instead of posting all these things on various web pages and in various lists, I thought it better to treat my creative life with a little more attention and respect. Not because I want to be famous (my mom might be the only faithful repeat visitor, you know), but because I feel the need to get it out in an organized way.

I intend to open the time capsule, post old live music, and talk about some of my friendships and musical interests. For those of you who want to follow along, please feel free. Tell me what you think. Contribute.

I will likely also create a page on Facebook and MySpace – just because that’s the cool thing to do these days. Thanks for reading.