I guess it’s time to talk a bit about me and this web site slash blog.

I’m not going to waste your time with too much information about me. Nothing interesting. My name is Cosmin. I live and work in Chicago (and its vicinity a.k.a Chicagoland). If you really are curious to learn about me, just read my blog. You’ll learn about my personality, my way of thinking and seeing things and a bit about my past.

Now about this site/blog. It all started because I realized that I’ve got something to say. There’s probably not one single issue on this planet I don’t have an opinion about. Even if at times it’s a no-comment position or I don’t really know what to think about some of them. This is the blog part. It’s that simple. It’s all about what I have to say about certain topics.

Who would care though about my thoughts? Probably nobody. And I figured it would be a waste of time to anyone who decided to read my posts. Hence the name “Wasting Your Time”. Because that’s what it is. It’s a waste of time. I will never manage to convince anyone of anything. On any given issue, most folks are divided into two categories: those who agree and those who disagree with me. And I certainly am not as full of myself as to even imagine I would ever be able to get those who disagree on my side. So, any way you turn it and twist it it’s just a waste of time.

And it was that for a couple of weeks. Just a blog on which to express myself. But then, one day I realized how much time I was wasting online with all kind of useless things. If you you want to know what they are, just take a look at the menu on the right and you’ll see. Considering the name of the blog, I decided to build my own collection of time wasting things. That’s how it got from a simple blog to a web site with all kind of useless stuff.

If you are curious enough to look around you’ll very easily realize that there’s certain categories which have very little content on them. That’s because the strategy I adopted is to add content to the site on a regular basis. As a result, if I decide I want to add a new category, I’ll build the pages, put some content on them (just so they’re not blank) and then come back at least once a week and add some more content. At the time of writing this, there’s not one single category I am done with. They’re all under a continuous development. And they shall all be for quite a while. Needless to say you should come back every once in a while to see what else is new. Not necessarily once a week, but once every couple of months should make sense.

A couple of “technical” considerations:

1. First of all the design of the site is based on Pilkster’s SEO Adsense Theme for Wordpress. However, if you are curious enough to check it out, it shouldn’t be hard to realize they don’t really have that much in common. That’s because I changed a lot of it. I loved the theme because it’s quite easy to modify without having too many unpleasant surprises. I tried my luck with quite a few until I found this one. Although some of those looking for a nice WP theme might not be very happy with it due to its simplicity, it’s actually what makes it great because that gives you the chance to modify quite a lot without, as I said, unpleasant behaviors on its behalf.

Why didn’t I build my own theme if I know so much about web design? Because I don’t. The changes I made go into the category of “Web Design 101″ and it took me quite a lot to learn even that much. And, since my time is limited as it is, I really am not willing to invest (at least for now) more into learning this stuff. I just want to thank Pilkster for his great theme and that’s that.

What I would love to ask you though, is to not copy my design. I have put a lot of time and effort into getting it where it’s at and I would really appreciate it if you let it be the only one on the net to look like this. Far from me the intention of trying to stop you to use the same theme. On the contrary I encourage you to do so (see above for reason). But please, do not copy my modifications, color scheme etc. Thank you for your understanding.

2. The second “technical” issue I want to cover is the navigation. I have tried to make the navigation an extremely easy thing to do. I personally hate web sites on which it takes me forever to find the things I need. So I made it a mission to make sure I don’t put my visitors through the same ordeal.

The site is divided into 4 major categories (for now): The Blog, The Funny Stuff, The Chicago Section and Other Stuff (mainly serious or at least not necessarily funny). All these sections are nicely integrated in my top and right menus which are the same on each and every page of the site. There are certain sections that have sub-pages I just couldn’t afford to mention in the main menus (as it would have been a huge waste of space). All of those sub-pages are, however, contained in sub-menus of the categories to which they belong. Those sub-menus are at the top or bottom of each and every one of the sub-pages of that specific category.

I’m telling you: It’s impossible to get lost.

That’s about it.

As a final word, I would very much appreciate if you would spread the word in case you like what you see.

Have a good one,
cosmin

P.S. If you want to know what the story is with all those pages (pictures, links, information etc.) dedicated to Chicago, please read the About My Chicago Section page