Chicago | Youseph Tanha

Converting TheHCorner.com to WordPress

In my spare time I run a fan site called The H Corner for the Chicago Illinois based band “Local H“. Not to long ago I got the itch to upgrade the site from it’s static HTML pages to use WordPress as it’s back end.

Until recently I used to maintain all of The H Corner’s updates and maintenance with the text editor, Textmate. I personally enjoy building websites with a text editor. I fell like I have a higher level of control when building the a website like that. However maintaining a website (especially one like The H Corner that should be updated frequently with new content) with a text editor I learned is not the best idea ever unless it is your only job in life.

Installing wordpress was easy using the wordpress.org install guide. It gave me step by step instructions to setup a SQL database and get everything running. Less then a year ago I switched my personal website to wordpress and have not looked back. I have been very happy with it’s performance.

Once I got wordpress setup and running I started with the task of importing all the content of the old site to the new one.

The whole process took less then a week. The hardest part might have been creating a theme that resembled more of the old h corner website. Themes are how you can quickly and easily change the look and feel of your website. You can find tons of themes on line with a simple Google search.

Check out the new H Corner at thehcorner.com and let me know what you think.

Vacation Over

Well, our vacation is over now and both Hannah and myself are back in Juneau. Back to work, Back to Normality for a little while as we try to pick up and put away the contents of our suitcases. We had such a good time though. I wish it was not over. Vacations are never long enough. We are already talking about our next one.

We spent our first week in Chicago at my brother’s house and had our early little Christmas there. It was really nice and I am so happy I got to see most of my family. It was so cool that we all were able to get together in Chicago like that. I hope we will be able to do something like this every year together.

After our week in Chicago, Hannah and I flew to Seattle and stayed with her family in Oak Harbor Washington. We both had a really good time. We had our little early Christmas with her family. Her sister and husband even came up to visit with us while we were their which was great. Actually it was Legendary!

While in Washington State we went and saw some friends. We saw our friend Adam at the Hidden Wave Board Shop while we were in Burlington. I have known Adam since high school. He is a really good friend of mine and I am glad we got to stop in and say hi. He and his shop are doing really well. I don’t ever remember seeing his store so full of merch before in my life!

We also got to see our friends Melanie and Scott for dinner one night. It’s amazing how entertaining Melanie can be with a plate of nachos.

Hannah and I also did some shopping while we were on our vacation. We picked up some new cloths and some new toys. We were saving up to do this because things in Juneau can be pricer then things in the lower 48 states.

But now we are back home. Our suitcases have exploded all over the apartment and we are slowly working to get everything put away in it’s place.

The Train Ride

Hannah and I left Juneau Alaska last Saturday to start off our well over due vacation together. We have had this trip planned for so long that Hannah had started counting down to the second from when it was time for use to leave.

So we left Juneau bright and early. Our flight made two stops on our way to Chicago. The first was in Sitka Alaska. It was a very short stop. They unloaded the people who wanted to get off at Sitka and loaded all the people who wanted to go to Seattle very quickly. The second stop was in Seattle Washington. Our layover in Seattle was only 2 hours long. But the time flew by because in Seattle we met up with my mom who flew with us from Seattle to Chicago.

So for the first leg of our vacation Hannah and I are currently in Illinois and having a blast with our family. Both my brothers, sister, nephew, and mom are here. We are all staying at my bother Reza’s new house in Aurora. (Party on Wayne! Party on Garth!)

The first day here we took it pretty easy. The house got some Christmas decorations put up and we played a little Ping Pong in the basement.

Today (well now Yesterday, but I have not been to bed yet so it feels like today) Abe, Tracy, Hannah and myself got up and took the commuter train from Aurora to the heart of Chicago to see the sights. With Abe as our tour guide we did some shopping and checked out the official Chicago Apple store. We also had dinner at the Hard Rock Café which was a lot of fun. They where playing great music videos the whole time we were there. Here is a picture of our Waiter.

We took the commuter train back to Aurora and drove from the train station back to my brothers house. We all shared our stories back at the house. Most everyone is in bed now. I should go too.