Alphecca

While reducing the posts MIGHT help a little bit, cutting that image at the top of the screen would do far more. At the moment it is a good 30 KB, and that is exceptionally large.

Likewise those images on the right of you and your cat, at 4.45 and 2.98 KB each, they aren't really large, but you could probably shave a combined 1K from them with a little optimization.

The one place you could shave off the most is the Outdoor Life magazine image. That thing is 35.58 and there is absolutely NO reason for that. I know you aren't hosting it, and you are linking to their image, but their image is ungainly. As a result, it might be best to mirror it then optimize it. Same with the NRA News image, though it is only 2.85KB and you wouldn't shave off too much there.

Now, all-told, you do have a surprising amount of text on your page. Sans-markup, there is about, assuming that what is there now is an average, around ~120KB of text. So yes, cutting that in half would put you at about ~60KB, which would do a quite a bit for optimization.

If you do optimize, however, take a serious look at the images too, as if you do, you could probably get your entire site down to unter 100KB combined. A good goal would be 90, but that may or not be something you can do, who knows. I didn't really take the time to look at it for optimizations too much, just looked at the glaringly obvious stuff.

Oh, I actually put my real email address there this time, instead of you@dontneed.it, so if you have any questions you can actually reply to me for once.

"more photos as well,"

Thumbnails, thumbnails, thumbnails!

(But I'm one of those old pharts who learned all I could about JPEG compression AS A USER, as soon as it came out. Using M$-anything is a guarantee you'll be using a poorly-written image compressor.)

Believe it or not, cable is *not* available in some areas. DSL neither. Satellite marginal at best. BTW did you know the REA still exists? For what?

Peet: Employee of the "Lost Electricity Reclamation Administration, a proud division of the Department of Redundancy Department"

I have been meaning to comment on how much I like the new masthead photo as compared to the old one. What's this image from?

I've taken all of your suggestions seriously.

Robert, the masthead you saw a few hours ago (and which is now the archive masthead -- the one for individual posts that folks link to) was a small part of a painting by Winslow Homer, painted in the late 1800's and titled Bear Hunters. The new one you'll see on the home (index) page when you read this (when you visit again) is by Doughty, also painted in the late 1800's, and I think is titled River View. That is also a cropped version of the original painting. Both are in the public domain because they were painted and displayed before 1928. The Smithsonian, with our tax-dollars among others, owns them and while they might like to "license" them, we, the American tax-payers own them so I use them. Any copyright on them is long past. Well, I hope.

I really like the "Bear Hunters" painting by Homer, too. But it was a bit cold and bleak for the home page. So why did I use it for the archive (individual entry page that other blogs link to)? To keep it, I guess. But the new Doughty painting for the home page is beautiful and should lighten the mood a bit, visually...

What's dialup? Hehheh.