Notice some changes around here? If you haven’t, you’re not paying very close attention. Why the changes? Read on, friends.

Welcome to Phase 3 (or is it Phase 2?) of Del Boca Vista, errr. the development of TBB.1 To quickly refresh, over a year ago I took full control of the blog, moving it off of a hosted service to a domain and server space that I owned. I also dumped the easy blogging platforms2 for WordPress, which offers me more control over the granular details of the blog.

The plan for Phase 3 (or 2) was to learn some HTML so I could build my own theme for the blog, from top-to-bottom. I purchased an HTML/CSS3 book in February of 2009. I quickly got through 3-4 chapters. Then I didn’t open it for months. Fortunately, I found an fantastic theme that I installed and have been using ever since.

About a month ago, I restarted Phase 3(2). I began working through the HTML book. I started digging into the code of the theme I had installed, as well as others, to try to figure out how WordPress works. I kept with the book this time, and finished it off last week. I wouldn’t call myself an HTML master, but I now know more than most people; just enough to cause problems if I’m not careful.

Turns out WordPress is a little harder to figure out than just learning HTML and CSS. There’s a whole other coding language that is involved, PHP. There are ways around learning exactly how PHP works, if you carefully follow various tutorials. But I find it difficult to dig through code if I have no idea what it means.

I have a book about PHP basics on my desk that I’m going to work through, but I don’t know how much it is going to tell me about the guts of WordPress.

So, for the time being, I’ve installed another theme. I loved the previous theme, but found it difficult to hack and tweak, at least with my current code skill level. I like the look of the new one, and if nothing else, it’s a nice change after over a year. I’ve already made some minor changes and hope to keep digging and find some more adjustments I can make to put my stamp on it even more. Don’t be surprised to find new things or slight adjustments each time you visit.

The long-term goal is still to build my own theme at some point, but it’s a more involved and lengthy process that I expected.


  1. Has it been too long, or do most of my readers still get the Del Boca Vista reference? 
  2. I’ve been through Blogger, Typepad, and WordPress.org. 
  3. HTML and CSS are the main pillars of current website design. HTML builds the structure, CSS adds the presentation and style details. But you knew that already.