ball of lightning [dot] com

Template History:  The many visual incarnations of the blog, from it’s inception as “that other blog” in April 2002 to now.

The original layout– simple and simpler.  It was one of the original Blogger templates, I didn’t do much graphically other than add a couple links in the sidebar, and a counter at the bottom of the page.  Used from April 2002-Fall 2002.
 

The desert theme.  First one that had pretty pictures.  Nothing real special– I just liked the color scheme a lot– blacks, oranges, reds– the header at the top gave it almost like an impressionist feel too.  Used from Fall 2002-July 2003.
 

Bloghaus.  Probably my favorite theme of all time.  Art-deco modern feel, also, I believe this was the first template I incorporated pages that were seperate from the blog posting structure.  I rotated the picture in the upper right every once in a while– it was the evil monkey from Family Guy for most of the time, but it was various other cartoons every now and then depending on mood and season.  Online from July 2003-February 2004.
 

Human Condition.  The first Wordpress theme (and the only Wordpress theme until I got the current domain name).  It was designed by Ian Main for the (and won 3rd place) Wordpress Theme Design contest.  The screenshot doesn’t do the design justice– it had cool striped rollover effects in different colors as well as faux 3D shading (including both the template itself and posted items).  Used from February 2004-August 2004 (essentially was online until like May 2005 but I had stopped updating the old site).

The first “Ball of Lightning” theme.  Derived from a theme I found online that utilized… polar bears.  Crude, but I did all the graphics quickly myself, and since this was my freshman year at Cornell theme, I didn’t really find ample time (or motivation) to do much editing or nice-making-looking.  Online from August 2004-July 2005

And the longest-lasting template to date.  My simple, yet aesthetically pleasing version of “Darkfall.”  No fancy tricks, no flashy graphics– had a header image, had some cross-hatched gray/black in the border regions, and then simple light text on a black background.  Used when I had Wordpress 1.2 - 2.0.5— when I upgraded to v2.0.5, I installed the “widget” feature, which I couldn’t get to work with PHP in this template.  So rather than spending a couple days fighting it– it was time to put the old gal down.  Used from July 2005-December 2006.