I started the BlackEyedPigz.com web site about 5 years ago, but it never was a blog, that came later.
Being into BBQ cooking, I liked being able to share the pictures and recipes from my experience with others. I tried things like a recipe based site, a photo slideshow, a brochure, etc…but finally stumbled on to WordPress as a platform. In fact, right before that I tried the Blogger.com service, which is a great service that’s 100% free and allows you to learn to blog with no investment other than your time.
However, being a control freak with my projects, I wasn’t satisfied being limited to what they allowed or didn’t allow and I happened across WordPress which is a free, open-source platform that you can load onto your own server, install the functions and features that you need or want, and change the theme, or the look, until it suits your preferences.
So, once I installed this platform, I spent a while getting the hang of it. At the most basic level, you enter text into a box and click publish. At a slightly advanced level, you can include things like Spam filters, contact forms, search engine optimization (SEO), photo galleries, and more.
You set up categories for your posts, just like you would set up file folders in a filing cabinet. You publish your writing to each category, if you choose to, and you can use those links to set up your site’s navigation. But enough about WordPress itself, I can’t do justice to it in this article.
BlackEyedPigz was born when I wanted to enter the world of competitive BBQ competition. I contacted a great graphic artist to create my logo, and set about taking tons of notes on each type of food that I smoked on the smoker. It’s a science as well as an art. I made my mistakes, but hey, at least I could eat ‘em! To this day, I still haven’t been able to compete in any of the competitions, but life has a way of doing that to a guy. With 4 kids, 3 of them in sports on any given weekend, I have pushed my competition dreams to the back burner so they can live their lives with my full support.
In the meantime, I’ve built my web site for BlackEyedPigz.com and through that I get to share some of my methods, recipes, tips and tricks with anyone who’s interested and that’s a nice consolation prize right now. Eventually, I’ll get to compete with other aspiring pit masters, until then, I’ll keep blogging away.