Just a Little Update

As you know already, Steven will be gone for the next two years.  He is in Utah doing missionary service, and will be back in the spring of 2014.  Because of the arrangements of his missionary service, he will have only minimal access to the internet, enough to email family once a week, but that is all.  As such, he will not be contributing to the blog or website until he returns.  Since this blog and website have now become sort of a one man show, there will be some changes.  As you are aware, I work full time, on a very irregular schedule, and so it is hard to promise the same regular entries and updates that we have been doing for the past several months.  Here is what you can expect to change.

First, the website is on an annual contract through webs.com.  They host it and we pay them a fee every year to do so.  We actually keep track of the attention this blog, our Facebook page, and the website each get, and the website has been our least popular feature.  That is probably due in part to the fact that it is really not much more than an index to the blog posts we have on here.  In a way it is redundant, because we put labels on all of our blog posts, so they can be found simply by selecting the appropriate tag on the left.  As an index, there is no need for our website.  We have talked about adding other features to it, but we have gotten a very limited amount of feedback from our readers, and we are unsure what other features people might like to see.  If you have any ideas, we encourage you to email us at ogden.bros.trains@gmail.com.  So, because the website is redundant and has received very little attention, we will not be renewing our contract with webs.com.  It expires near the end of June, and we are simply going to let it expire.  When it expires, the website will no longer be available.  You will see some changes to the layout of the blog reflecting that.  Additionally, Steven and I will no longer have our own email addresses through the website.  Our only contact email address will be the one above.  We may bring the website back and host it through Blogger, because that would allow us to better integrate the blog into it, but we have not made any solid plans on that yet.  Again, let us know if you want to see anything in particular on a website.

Now, since I am the sole contributor to this blog for a while, expect to see new posts less frequently.  I do work full time, and often when I work, I go away from home.  Very often, 20 hours of actual work means 40 hours away from home.  Obviously, this does limit the time I have available to sit down and write for the blog.  I do enjoy writing, and I plan to continue to do so, but the schedule will be less regular, and most of the posts will probably pertain to what happens at work.  It seems that our posts about life on the railroad have been some of the more popular, and we have no plans to discontinue those in the foreseeable future.  They will just be posted when I have the time to write something instead.

Our Facebook page sees less visitors than our blog does, but that is largely due to the fact that we only update it occasionally.  Expect to see more there.  We will be posting more pictures and little brief stories on there than we have been.  You can get to our Facebook page by going to https://www.facebook.com/OgdenBrothersTrains.  If you need to contact us, you can also do so through that page.  We plan to use that for shorter stories, which do not merit their own post, small updates on various projects, and photos.  We have used it in the past to link to our blog posts, right after they go up, but we will not be doing that as much anymore.  We want to use it more for other features, such as photos and short updates.

Additionally, while Steven will not be directly contributing to the blog for a while, I will post updates received from him on occasion.  I will be in contact with him every week, and I plan on keeping everyone interested up to speed on his activities, although they often will not have much to do with anything else on here.

That is our plan for the site, blog, and Facebook page.  Keep your eyes open for some of the changes, and as I mentioned earlier, if you have anything you would like to see us add or any features you think would make things more interesting, we would love to hear from you.  You can email us or leave a note on our Facebook page.