Blog Oklahoma

Moving Webhosts

2025-12-29T20:56:13Z

The Blog Oklahoma Network of websites are moving!

At the beginning of December, I received news that I’ll need to find a new web host for all of my websites. While this is certainly disappointing, I’m working on it. I’ve downloaded all the sites and exported their data. Most of these sites can’t be moved directly to a new host as-is; they will need to be rebuilt.

Fortunately, Blog Oklahoma (blogoklahoma.com) is ready to go, so once I find its new server, the transfer should be quick.

The other sites, Blog Oklahoma Podcast (blogoklahoma.net / show notes), Exploring Oklahoma History (blogoklahoma.us), and Program Witch Pages (programwitch.com), will take a bit more time and effort to move.

It’s hard to say precisely how long it will take to move everything, but I don’t expect it to be too long. I’m glad the transition to 11ty worked well for Blog Oklahoma, and it might be a good solution for the others, too. Alternatively, I could move them to WordPress.

Please note this will not affect the newsletter or podcast (feed) as they are hosted on Substack and Libsyn, respectively.

I appreciate your patience during this process and will keep you updated as I make progress.

More later. Time to code.

— K. @}-;—

Blog Oklahoma Website Update

2025-10-26T16:30:00Z

Welcome to Blog Oklahoma

I’ve updated the Blog Oklahoma website. I’ve taken the site forward by stepping backward. The website now uses only HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It no longer uses server-side scripting or a database server. Making this change helps the site in the long run. It leaves ample room for growth and significantly improves load time.

You may notice, the site hasn’t changed very much. I’ve kept the site's overall style and layout. All the improvements are on the backend. I’m now leveraging Eleventy to help generate the website.

Eleventy is an open-source static website generator. It lets me create templates for a uniform look, provides scripting to generate files such as sitemaps and RSS feeds, and lets me use Markdown to write blog posts. Long-time readers know how I love using Markdown. This is a very brief description of Eleventy; it does so much more. You can learn about it at 11ty.dev.

Sections on the home page, such as the Mastodon feed, calendar, newsletter, podcast, and YouTube, are all pulled from their respective RSS feeds and APIs.

I’ve moved site navigation to a single-column collapsible sidebar. All the information is right there for Oklahoma news, weather, resources, and direct links to the newsletter and podcast. I’ve simplified the blog; it will now include more general information about Blog Oklahoma. Most of my previous long-form posts are in the newsletter.

I’m still using Google Analytics for visitor statistics and Google AdSense for unobtrusive advertising (every penny helps). Please visit the about page for credits, privacy statement, cookie notice, etc.

I originally planned to move my personal blog over to Eleventy first, but that turned out to be a heavier lift than expected. I need to code a way to export 26 years' worth of posts.

If you have any questions about the new site, using Eleventy, or the future of Blog Oklahoma, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

More Later. Time to take a break, that took more than a few weekends to code. Ha!

– K. @}-;--

The Blog Oklahoma Halloween Special

2025-10-01T13:13:13Z

Spooky season is here! That time of year when the Blog Oklahoma Halloween Special makes its ghostly appearance once more. This special musical episode presents highlights from episodes Blog Oklahoma Podcast 83: Special Halloween Music Spooktacular and Blog Oklahoma Podcast 45: The Halloween Special. I really enjoy listening to this encore presentation every year. I hope you do too. Happy Halloween, everyone!

Playlist:

Halloween Is Awesome by GeminiDragon
Ghoul Au Go Go by THE TEXREYS
Happy Halloween by Ben Twisted
Haunted House by Ben Cooper
Halloween by Steve Goodie
Halloween by Fishing For Comets
Halloween Girl by Ghosts On The Radio
The Witching Hour by Robin Brock
Halloween by The Coffinshakers
Lame Monster Party by Paul and Storm
The Haunted House told by Mary Murphy
(^ Spooky Piano by Jeff Rosiana)
The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe by Radio Theatre Group
NPR Versus the Zombies by Smart Bomb Radio
Re Your Brains by Jonathan Coulton
Undead Happy Trees by Tom Smith
I'm not very good at being scary by Gilly Slinn
PC Halloween by Devo Spice (The FuMP)

Happy Birthday Blog Oklahoma

2025-06-25T13:13:13Z

Twenty-two years ago today, I started this hobby known as Blog Oklahoma.

On July 25, 2003, I launched the Blog Oklahoma web ring. A web ring was a way to link websites together under a common topic or community. You could find webrings for almost anything in the day, except, at the time, Oklahoma bloggers. So set up a webring. It was open to anyone who blogged in or about Oklahoma.

I first used a service called RingSurf, but later wrote my own web ring code and migrated everyone to blogoklahoma.com. It wasn't long until the webring grew into a diverse and interesting community of Oklahoma bloggers.

However, as with anything in the internet age, all good things must come to an end. On February 1, 2021, I sunset the webring. Social media had pretty much taken over the blog by then. So many Oklahoma blogs had gone dark or disappeared entirely.

If you’re interested, I’ve archived the final webring data on GitHub. It would be an interesting project to review the list and see who is still actively blogging. That would have to be for another time. Too many projects as it is. Ha!

Blog Oklahoma continues today. So instead of a resource of Oklahoma bloggers, I, in a small way, have turned it into a resource for Oklahoma bloggers. You’ll find links for Oklahoma news, weather, government, and history. I started a newsletter, and I hope to return to podcasting eventually.

So happy birthday, Blog Oklahoma. Here’s too many more.

Through The Years

Thanks to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, here's a look at blogoklahoma.com over the ages.

Closing The Oklahoma High School Sports Forum

2024-08-06T16:14:00Z

Due to circumstances too numerous to discuss, I’ve made the difficult conclusion that it's time to close the Oklahoma High School Sports Forum. I dislike that this comes right at the beginning of the school year, and I do apologize for that.

Thank you for making the Oklahoma High School Sports Forum a wonderful community. A big thank you to those who have been with us since 2018, when we migrated from Coaches Aid. Unfortunately, it’s time to migrate again. All good things must end sometime.

There are more forums out there that focus on Oklahoma Sports, not to mention all the great social media communities. I’m sure you all will land somewhere.

I’ll be leaving the forum active until the end of the month (September 30, 2024) so you can conclude and archive any conversations.

I have disabled new member registrations.

I’m posting this announcement in General Discussion, so please feel free to leave your thoughts. If you like the ProBoards service, I encourage you to start your own Oklahoma Sports Forum. Please share any links to where you land next to start the migration.

Please understand this was not an easy decision, but it’s done.

Well, that does it for me. One last jog around the bases before they turn off the lights.

Thank you all again for six years Oklahoma Prep Sports.

– K.

A Way To Support Blog Oklahoma

2024-03-27T11:02:45Z

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I turned off paid subscriptions to the Blog Oklahoma Newsletter on Substack. The newsletter has always been and will continue to be free to everyone.

Again a big thank you to the few people who signed up for the paid subscription. It wasn’t necessary, but I still appreciated it. With their help, I was able to support our local economy by treating myself to a large dark roast coffee from my neighborhood Scooter's Coffee every now and then. Ha!

This got me thinking: Why not continue this coffee theme by signing up to Ko-Fi? If you would like to support me or say thank you by buying me a coffee for everything I do at Blog Oklahoma, you can do so at ko-fi.com/blogoklahoma. Again, it's not necessary, but still appreciated.

Have a blessed and well-caffeinated day.

– K.

PS: I've added a Ko-Fi widget to all the Blog Oklahoma websites.

Update 08-05-2024: Paid subscriptions for the newsletter are back on. The newsletter is still free, that hasn't changed. Please read this newsletter for details.

Blog Oklahoma Newsletter Always Free

2024-03-20T13:13:13Z

Update 08-05-2024: Paid subscriptions are back on. The newsletter is still free, that hasn't changed. Please read this newsletter for details.

I’ve turned off paid subscriptions to the Blog Oklahoma Newsletter. The newsletter has always been and will continue to be free to everyone.

A few people who wanted to sign up for my "free" newsletter were confused when Substack asked for a paid subscription. So, I want to end that confusion. Substack already makes you click multiple times to complete a subscription; if I can remove just one of those clicks, all the better. Ha!

I want to express my gratitude to those who have previously signed up for a paid subscription. Your contribution of $3.97 per month (what I got after Substack and Stripe's fees) was greatly appreciated. With your help, I was able to support our local economy by treating myself to a large dark roast brewed coffee from my neighborhood Scooter's Coffee every now and then. Thank you again for your support.

Blog Oklahoma Web Ring Sunsetting

2020-11-23T13:13:13Z

Dear Friends, Neighbors, and Blog Oklahoma Web Ring Members,

On February 1, 2021, I will be officially sunsetting the Blog Oklahoma Web Ring.

As the internet evolves, more people have moved away from blogging and instead focus on social media like Twitter, Facebook, and other social spaces. Back when I started the Blog Oklahoma web ring, blogging was in its infancy, MySpace was just launching, and Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit didn't exist. Change is the nature of things, and it's time to move on.

On December 1, 2020, I will stop all new registrations to the web ring. The web ring will remain operational until February 1, 2021. At some point after that I'll be removing the code and the web ring part of Blog Oklahoma will no longer be. An archive of the current web ring will be made available. It will only include blog listings and not any membership information. After February 1, 2021, all member accounts will be removed.

Current web ring members, please go ahead and remove the web ring code from your blogs.

Oh, and one last thing. Blog Oklahoma (.com) isn't going anywhere. I'll be evolving it into something else. So please watch our social spaces and listen to the Blog Oklahoma Podcast for announcements.

It's been an absolute honor this past seventeen years providing this service for my fellow Oklahoma bloggers. If you have any questions, please feel free to get hold of me in the usual ways.

Thank you.

Kevin Latham Blog Oklahoma web ring manager

Updates

Update 11/23: I sent out email to the current webring members yesterday afternoon with this same notice. If you didn't get your email, check your spam folder. I used Mailchimp for this one-time mailing. I'll be deleting this same emailing list in a few days. - K.
Update 11/30: Unsubscribed everyone from the one-time Mailchimp mailing list. Scheduled to shut down web ring registrations tomorrow.
Update 12/2: Registration disabled.
Update 12/11: Web ring archive posted to Github.

Music Spectacular Playlists

2020-07-31T13:13:13Z

Back when the podcast first began every tenth episode or so I would put out a pod-safe music compilation called the Music Spectacular. I really enjoyed putting together these episodes, and I must admit they are some of my favorites. I still listen to many of these songs today.

Someday I would love to do episodes like these again. I would just need to find new sources of pod-safe music. Mevio, the place I use to get these tunes, closed its doors years ago.

Feeling a bit nostalgic and just for fun I put together a playlist of some of these favorite episodes. There are 10 Music Spectacular episodes plus 3 bonus holiday episodes.

Download Playlist: PLS or M3U

Show notes for each episode:

I hope you enjoy this music as much as I do. And thank you for listening to the Blog Oklahoma Podcast.

PS: If you would like to listen to some of this music on Spotify, check out this playlist. Also you might find many of these tracks on Soundcloud.

The #blogmonth challenge

2015-04-16T14:21:58Z

The #blogmonth challenge is simple. Post something to your blog every day for an entire month. The overall goal is to write something. The #blogmonth challenge gives you an opportunity or an excuse to improve your writing skills and expand your creativity.

It doesn’t matter what you post. It could be a one paragraph family update; a dissertation on the environmental effects of blue cheese; a chapter from a short story about your big toe; a review of that movie you saw with that guy in it, you know that one guy from that thing; a top 10 list of your favorite ice cream toppings, or even the ever popular random cat picture with a clever caption of course. It just doesn’t matter. What matters is you have fun and write something.

Here are a few guidelines and suggestions.

Write and publish something every day for the entire month. I suggest you write the article on the day you post. You can work on other articles or ideas ahead of time, but please don’t post-date publish them. The spirit of this challenge is daily creativity and posting.

Feel free to plan ahead. Take the first day (or the day before) of the challenge to map out what you’re going to write about for the month. Create a simple list of topics. You can even go as far as scheduling what you’re going to write about and when. Or don’t plan at all. Take it as a real challenge and come up with something to write about right then and there.

I don’t suggest you do your creative writing directly into your blogging platform’s editor. You can, but do remember the last time you accidentally closed that tab and lost everything. I do suggest doing your writing in a word processor then copy and paste your work into your blogging platform’s editor. I’ll do most of my writing in Google Docs, but will often do work with Microsoft Word or LibreOffice Writer. Use what you’re comfortable with. In fact, you can use this challenge as an opportunity to learn how to use your word processor better.

Bonus Tip: CTRL-C, CTRL-V, CTRL-SHIFT-V, and CTRL-Z are your friends. Keep your hands on the keyboard. Format later.

Remember to tag your posts with #blogmonth to let every one know you've taken the challenge.

Podcasters and vloggers please feel free to take this challenge too. It should prove even more challenging to write, edit, encode, and publish something every day. (#podmonth, #vlogmonth)