Received a response from bloggerforum.com re: my archiving problem and thought I'd share the results:

Re: Removing/Archiving Stale-Dated Posts from "Current Posts" Page
Well if I understand the problem correctly it's that there are too many posts showing on the Main page correct?

This will be in the blogger settings. You're right about the template will not affect this in any way.

Log into Blogger>Dashboard>Settings>Formatting and the first option on the page is
Show X X on the main page

The xx's can be filled out in two ways, either by number of posts or number of days.

Put in what you want. Save at the bottom of the page. Republish the blog.

This SHOULD change what blogger puts on the main page.

Just another note-about the archiving. If you have archiving enabled...posts aren't moved from the main page to the archives when a certain time elapses...they can be on both at the same time.

When a new post is made it's added to the main page, and it's also added to the appropiate archive page.

When time/number of posts elapses (based on the settings above) and that post gets kicked off the main page it will continue to reside on the archive page....if that makes sense. This behaviour is not really changeable.


The most important thing I think is your main page settings I described first. See what they are and change accordingly and that should resolve the issue.

My response:

Re: Removing/Archiving Stale-Dated Posts from "Current Posts" Page
Hi Redryder,

Thanks for responding. You understand the description of the problem.

My Blogger>Dashboard>Settings>Formatting and Show X X on the main page option is currently set to 30 days.

I changed it to 5 posts and republished. This in fact does remove stale-dated posts from the main page as I desire. I changed the setting back to 30 days and republished again and am returned to the overabundant state originally creating the problem.

I guess the problem is my expectation that "30 days" is the last 30 calendar days while Blogger's settings is defining it as the last 30 days of posts. So, if it takes 5 years to accumulate posts from 30 individual days, that is what is shown. Silly me to expect something so commonplace as a calendared utility. LOL!

Okay, I can solve this by changing the number of individual posts to be displayed and ignoring the number of days.

It never occurred to me that the definition of 30 days would be so literal. They create the archive index links on a calendar basis but don't use the same logic when displaying the posts.

Unless you can think of a work around to make the 30-day calendar option work, consider the problem bandaided.

Don't be alarmed. Whatever Blogger did this past week seems to have screwed up many blogger templates, mine included. Rather then try to recreate all the tweaking I did to my old one, I took the lazy way out and switched to a new template. If you're looking for the archive links, they're now grouped at the bottom of the page. This gives more girth to the blog and allows it to house all my verbosity and graphics without me doing a lot of formatting.

I'm still looking for a solution to my one pet peeve with blogger. If anyone has suggestions, please feel free to speak up!

I've used several blog templates provided on blogger.com's website and experience the problem with each of them so I don't think the problem is specific to a particular template. Not sure if additional code is needed in the blog template or if the problem is due to the fact that I display the FTP'd blog file on this page using inline frames.

The problem:

The indexing of archives works as designed and is displayed correctly on my blog page. The problem is that the archive process does not clean up the "current entries/main page." This is causing an increasing problem with download times since I use a lot of photos in my blogging to break up the walls of text. Currently all posts with a 2005 date are displayed on the current posts page.

The desired solution:

I want the indexing and display of archives to continue working as they do, however, I'd like the display of blog posts to be truncated to the frequency set in the ARCHIVE settings tab of my blogger dashboard. Specifically, I'd like to display only the current month's postings on the main page with all other stale dated posts accessed/displayed only by clicking on one of the archive index links.

Is anyone able to supply advice to solve the problem on my own or to provide template code for me to use with editing instructions?

My thanks and appreciation to anyone willing to help.

I posted this same question on bloggerforum.com. If anyone provides a solution, I'll share it here.

NASA spacecraft to collide with faraway comet on July 4
Posted on : Sun, 26 Jun 2005 23:02:00 GMT | Author : Geoffrey Lewis
News Category : Space



On July 4, NASA’s Deep Impact space mission would smash into distant comet Tempel 1 in a bid to unravel the mystery of the creation of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago.

Tempel 1, which is half as big as the Manhattan Island, is one among millions of comets, which are essentially collections of ice and dust particles, in the solar system. According to scientists, comets slamming into Earth might have been behind the planet getting water in the oceans as also the chemicals that might have created life.

The Deep Impact mission, a copper projectile around a third of a ton in weight, would hit Tempel 1 with a velocity of 23,000 miles per hour and would create a crater measuring 40 meter by 400 meter.
“This is a tremendously exciting, daring first-of-its-kind mission,” said Rick Grammier, the Deep Impact project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

There are so many disturbing aspects about this whole thing, I'm not sure where to begin.

1. This appears to be a Trojan Horse containing the continuation of Reagan's Star War's legacy. This quote from the article only reinforces the thought given the example of bullets used to describe the difficulty of the mission. If they can pull this off successfully, we'll be hard-pressed to stop further efforts on the Star Wars missile system. Although, the pessimist in me says that I highly doubt any work on the system ever stopped in the first place. It just went into stealth mode.

“What makes it new and exciting also makes it extremely difficult and challenging from a technical viewpoint. It’s a bullet trying to hit a second bullet, with a third bullet in the right place at the right time watching the first two bullets,” he said.

2. The audacity of mankind is boggling. We've already managed to upset the balance of nature on planet earth with our "experiments." Tinkering with the delicate balance of objects in space while having no idea of the outcome is just asinine. At the same time, how dare we think we can simulate the creation of the solar system by throwing one spit wad at a tiny ball of ice. Seems to me, if they wanted to learn about the differences between surface layer and interior on a ball of ice, all they need do is study earth's glacial layers.

Michael A’Hearn, the University of Maryland astronomer and Deep Impact’s principal investigator, said, “The whole purpose of Deep Impact is to go back and understand the differences between the surface layer and the interior. What we don’t have any control over is what will happen when we do the impact. We know so little about comets that it's very hard to predict.”

3. The political ramifications for the timing of the event to occur on July 4th, the USA's greatest patriotic holiday of the year, is extremely bad PR for the other peoples of the planet. The spectacle of the US bombing things in space with the accompanying flag waving and pagentry of fireworks displayed in the background isn't my idea of making nice with the neighbors. With the focus on the US holiday, it will be an even greater flop if the experiment goes wrong either with a miss or catastrophic disturbance in the spacial balance of things. Either way, what a windfall for the anti-US voices. The fallout has already started with a $311 million lawsuit being files by a Moscow woman who claims:

In court papers, Bai said that Deep Impact will "infringe upon my system of spiritual and life values, in particular on the values of every element of creation, upon the unacceptability of barbarically interfering with the natural life of the universe, and the violation of the natural balance of the universe."

Bai says she fears that the blast could somehow disrupt mystical forces. Also, she added, it might create an open season on celestial objects by the world's spacefaring nations.

"If the Americans can study comets with the help of bombs, why not the Chinese?" she asked. "Americans want to be ahead of everybody. And maybe that's good, but not in this case. It's a barbaric method, to study the universe with bombs."

On news closer to home, California's earthquakes rumble on with a 4.8 shaker at Lake Tahoe. I felt it here in Sacramento and continue to feel smaller aftershocks. It felt just like the very beginning moments of Loma Prieta, long rolling back and forth action. I was already on my feet and heading toward my desk to get under it when the shaking stopped. Immediately turned on the radio and TV but there were no reports so got on the internet and was relieved to find it was a mild local quake and not the distant major quake I've been fearing the past month.

Did you know that a 7.0 quake near Lake Tahoe is capable of producing 3 to 10 meter Tsunami waves in the lake? I learned that today. Nature's power is nothing to sneeze at.

My apartment complex is undergoing a transformation of its own. Resurfasing the roads and parking lots, rebuilding parking stalls, repaving sidewalks, painting all exterior surfaces of the buildings and finally pruning trees and installing fresh landscaping and lighting. Last week they completed the tree pruning, roads and parking lots and started the painting. Wonder how much the rent increase will be to pay for all this stuff. It was needed though. The place was showing its age rather badly.

Big quake off the coast up near Eureka about an hour ago registering 7.0 with a tsunami warning for most of the Pacific Ocean coastlines. The warning has now expired with no sighting of a tsunami wave. Didn't feel the quake here in Sacramento but I'm sure mom's friends in Eureka felt it if it was anything in comparison to the Loma Prieta quake I felt.

Funny thing was I had just checked the USGS quake website this afternoon to see if there was anymore evidence to bolster my suspicion that we were going to have a big quake in California very soon. After seeing the info about the big quake in Chile, I filled the birdbath on my balcony with water up to the brim so I'd have it to use as a pretty good indicator of a quake should we have one close enough to be felt. I don't think this is the last of them. We had a small one in San Diego and the big one in Eureka. There's a lot of stress on the faults between and it seems obvious to me that the earth's plates are still readjusting themselves. The Hayward fault is way overdue and probably will be the one to go. Glad I'm no longer living in the area. I still have fears and nightmares from my experiences in the Loma Prieta quake.

Quite a few security updates from Microsoft today. Be sure you update your software mom and Stu.

Come on, Gals! Exercise that power that each and every one of us has! Flaunt those girls in all their natural splendor!

Did you know the nipple has the power to alter get-out-the-vote campaigns in England?



Even the clothed nipple of Sharron Davies can sway the simple minds of Olympic swimming event viewers. Apparently, the 41-year-old's prominent nipples diverted attention from the action in the pool.



The powerful nipple has couples in Columbia standing in long lines for the opportunity to tweak the nipples of statuary to improve their relationships. The sculptor who created the statue a short 4 years ago was quoted as saying "It`s amazing to hear that the breasts have had to be repaired many times because they`re being worn out by too much touching."

Need more examples of the amazing nipple before invoking their power for yourself?

Pamela Anderson is ordering rolls of duct tape by the case to comply with efforts to keep her untamed silicon harnessed on her show, Stacked.



And now even the producers of Desperate Housewives are spending millions to eradicate the offensive protrusion.

Okay, this is a test. Did those photos of nipple laden mannequins distract any of you from reading my blog? Go ahead, tell the truth! LOL!

Maybe John Travolta has the right idea. Everyone should just walk around clutching their breasts like he does in the movie Basic.

It would sure make these shows a lot more entertaining to watch!

Personally, I find the people finding offense at such silly nonsense to be nothing but big boobs themselves. What about all those distracting crotch bulges in tight jeans? What's good for the goose is good for the gander, boys. Tape up those hairy nuggets before you cause an accident!