Growing up, my parents always made an advent calendar a big part of the Christmas season, and it’s a tradition we have continued with Gabe.

Last week I thought that a web-based Frank lloyd Wright advent calendar would be a way to keep the Newsblog active during the news-poor holiday season (I swear, it seemed like a good idea just a few days ago).

So, beginning on December 1, each morning there will be a special post with a special link.

Don’t get excited, in practice, it’s not as good as it sounds (and now that I’ve written it down, it doesn’t even sound all that good). since I only thought of it a week ago, the links aren’t even that good — if you’ve been around the newsblog or the FLW web for a while, you’ve likely seen them before — next year I’ll do better.

Hey, you gets what you pay for, and the Newsblog is free.

It is very much of a work in progress — you’ll notice Taliesin West isn’t on the map yet (it should have been one of the first, of course, but I’m arbitrary that way) and many more sites need to be added, but it is a good start. A click on the push pins will give some rudimentary information and a link to tour information. Think of it as a geographic version of my links page.

Those with specific knowledge of individual sites are encouraged to double check for errors. And everyone, as always, is welcome to pass along suggestions, complaints, general crabbiness or encomiums (encomiums preferred).

Yes, I know the same information exists in better, more attractive and more useful form elsewhere — but if I weren’t quixotic, I’d be nothing.

Note, while some are whooping it up at the Annual Conference, some of us are toiling away in the vineyards, doing the good work.

Update:I’m adding sites continuously, so if you think I missed something, check back.

And honestly, while I like the Frank Lloyd Wright Newsblog, it’s really not something I want to do full-time for free. But I’m pretty sure that wasn’t a consideration when Faceless Fortune 500 Company down-sized today. On the other hand, I am the world’s first full-time, professional Frank Lloyd Wright Newsblogger.

So it looks like, in the short-term (I hope), I’ll be hanging around here more than usual. I’d like to hope that I’ll be making some improvements, but the odds are good that at some point I’m going to totally freak out or go catatonic. Also, I think my wife is going to have a list of things to do around the house.

I’m now moving on the the next feature (defined as “something no one asked for, and no one will ever use, but that I feel like wasting my time on”) that will see the light of day in like eight months.

So expect new stuff, just not a lot of it.

I’ve still got some stuff to add, but it’s good enough right now. Take a look and send me an e-mail.

I don’t really care for the “Quick bits” label applied to these posts, but I’ll have to dig around in some scary looking code to find where that can be changed. I can, and probably will, change the formating slightly so that these posts are more distinctive than they are now.

I’d like to hear what you think about it — let me know.

Sorry for the mess.

More recent Update: Links page is now working. I will probably move the links off of the side bar, though I may leave a abbreviated list of links there. The links at the bottom of the page may be removed as well — I’ll have to live with them for a few days and see if I like them.

The Frank Lloyd Wright Events Calendar will return soon — I can’t figure out an easy way of creating a date-sorted list of future events, but I have a cumbersome solution that I need to refine. Sure as hell wished I studied PHP in college instead of ancient history — you would be stunned to know how useless Aramaic is in day-to-day life.

Update: The text is gray. I don’t like that either. Don’t worry, it will be changed later today, but we are heading out the door at this moment. Patience is a virtue.

Last week was a quiet week for Frank Lloyd Wright news, but, naturally, while I was gone, a bunch of news stories were published. so there should be a bunch of stuff going up on the weblog today.

Though it’s supposed to be a Gabe weekend, I’m thinking I’ll work in a drive-by of the Haynes House.

See ya late Sunday, or Monday morning. Have a good weekend!