Blog templete and a thank-you

OK.  With some tips/pointers/advice/much-appreciated help from DanTobin-DanTobin I think I am on my way to actually taking care of this blog.  He gave me some blog-philosophy/big picture insight into this type of a project, as well as pointing me in the direction of some template sites (i.e. the exact same sites blogger recommends on their help page and which I had previously ignored).   Of course I immediately stumbled onto the exact template he used, and only realized it after doing some html tweaking, so I had to find another one.  Template that is.  Stupid Dan having a similar sensibility to me.