The good, the bad and the ugly, all in one

If you have any ideas about becoming a web site designer, this is a good lesson about what NOT to do.

In the mid-late 90s, when I decided Timo's should have a site, I started to build it myself. I am good on the back end (input forms, database manipulation and such), but a dreadful designer. The site I built initially would have made you want to throw up, but I ended up with a very nice one, thanks to my friend Miklen, who created it as her "thesis" to get her web design certificate from UCSF or USF or one of those places with a U in it.

But I had contracted the bug, and in my delusions of grandeur, I thought I would build another site to comment about food/cuisine (what I'm doing now in this blog), have food news, an online shop, a database with all the restaurants in the world, all kinds of fantastic stuff to offer. I spent a couple of days looking for a domain name and found 'Webgourmand', which I promptly registered.

And so, the Webgourmand site was born. It is the ugliest, tackiest site I have ever seen. When I started putting it together, it was like "mommy, look, I learned how to make web pages". As long as I have space on the server, I'm going to leave it there just as it is now (out of date, a couple of things may be broken) for sentimental reasons. If you feel brave, click the link; maybe you'll laugh instead of getting sick.

Now, that was the bad and the ugly. The good: you may find a recipe you like – you can search for those by name; just enter a part of the name of whatever you are looking for. There are not very many recipes, but you will find some from me and other chefs, some of whose names you will surely recognize. Also, a lot of people have made good comments about the little blurb regarding the running of the bulls on the 'Online Shop' page.

There are over 2,400 U.S. restaurants listed; the list is actually pretty current (updated last year), but I doubt you will find it very useful.

Maybe one day I'll revive this project. I started checking it today, after months and months of not even looking at it. Now it looks like there may be the beginnings of something functional. Any ideas, anyone?

Carlos