This site opens up in a very simple layout, a simple navigation menu to one side, and turns out to be an entirely simple site.
There’s a nifty section under archives called “farewell messages”, which holds scanned samples of handwritten goodbye letters and notes Al received during his last days in high school. It’s a neat way to go about remembering those types of nostalgic things.
Al lives in England. Burl’s his nickname. That’s all I found out about him through his “bio” section, and that’s pretty much all I found out about him even after reading all of his archived news section.
There’s a link to an AlBurl.com forum, and a link to some funny graphics that have been uploaded to Al’s server for your viewing enjoyment.
Another clever little touch to his weblog is the “on this date in history” fact that he posts alongside each entry. But sometimes that’s absolutely all that’s posted. It’s hard to justify coming back to visit time and time again when there’s nothing to really “connect” you to the author.
I could really connect on a few of the things Al writes about – the way people that dial the wrong number can’t ever admit to themselves that they did make a mistake in dialing, and people who have the automatic security lights on their houses that flash on with the slightest movement. Unfortunately, though, those were the only two real personable entries that I found.
“AlBurl.com – for when you’ve run out of decent sites to visit” – that’s the author’s tagline at the top of the site. At first, I thought Al was probably being a little harsh on himself, but as I continued to read on, I could see how some people might feel that way.
alburl.com