First, a program note. This will be the last column for this week, as I will be taking a break (and heartily wish everyone out there a very happy turkey day tomorrow!). Regular columns will resume on Monday.

Second, a big decision. Like many, I have been pretty depressed about the prospect of four more years of an absolute buffoon leading this country, and I know full well the toll keeping up with it all takes on me (from the first go-'round). So I have been doing some soul searching as I wondered whether it was even worth all that effort (and exhaustion), or whether I should just gracefully retire and just wrap up my blogging efforts for good.

While I cannot commit to the whole four years at this point, I am now confident that I can at least make it through another year. I always make this commitment before I launch each year's pledge drive, because I see donations to this site as paying forward, not back. I ask for donations in December not to cover the costs of the past year (to put this another way), but to pay for the upcoming year. So I have to make the mental commitment to blog for the whole year before I ask anyone to donate to support the site. I am now ready to do that, and will be launching the pledge drive at some point after the Thanksgiving weekend, as usual (I didn't have the time or energy to put together all the cute-kitten photos now, but did want to make the commitment before the pledge drive even begins... kittens to follow soon, I promise...).

But that's not even the part you all should be really thankful for. Instead, I have big news! The website redesign/updating is going to happen very soon now! I finally threw in the towel and admitted that it was too big a job for me to tackle on my own, and so I will be using a professional web designer to achieve this. I have now narrowed the choice of web designer down to two possibilities and will be selecting one of them over the weekend to get the whole process started. Ideally, this will all take place in January, just after all the year-end holiday disruptions.

Here are the goals I have outlined for this upgrade, in no particular order:

• Update the design. The world of blogging has changed, but my blog has not. Key among the technical goals is to make everything easy to read and navigate on phones.
• Simplify the site. Remove outdated (and broken) features, while leaving the core functionality easier to use and navigate.
• As much as possible, keep the same look-and-feel for the main features of the site. I want it to look very similar to what it does now, in terms of headers (the grumpy cat will stay!), text, the parchment background, and colors for titles and other features.
• Better comments! I know, I know... this is the big one for most readers. Comments should be previewable and editable (for at least a certain time after they are posted, perhaps an hour or two?). I haven't decided whether to create "threaded" comments or not (where answers/reactions to a comment appear under that particular comment, indented), but it is also a possibility.
• Modern social media links for sharing articles. The ones I have are laughably outdated and I'm not even sure they work anymore. And they don't include any modern social media links at all, which will be fixed.
• Better security. This means installing a certificate and having much more robust signups for new users.
• Improve donations? I've been using just PayPal, but there are other options for moving online cash available now, so I might consider adding options (if anyone is really interested).
• Full backward-compatibility. I still use a desktop computer to both post and read the site. I have to still be able to do this -- so don't worry, if that's how you read the site, it will still work. Hopefully, this will mean the site will still be readable even on older browsers, so it doesn't force anyone (especially me) to go out and upgrade equipment just to be able to read it.
• Full archive preserved. The database -- the core of the website itself that stores all the articles and comments -- will be fully preserved. Nothing should be lost.
• No new bells and whistles (at least, that I can avoid). The site is basic, and it works fine for just displaying text and the occasional image or graphic. That's all I really want it to still do. I am not looking to add whizzy new stuff (such as videos or pictures that move or do other whizzy things) because I think all of that sort of thing is distracting. There is a slight (very slight) chance I may decide to create a podcast at some point (where I would probably just read my Friday columns verbatim, nothing more), so there's a possibility that could be added to the mix, but no promises (it would take a lot of effort to get up and rolling and to maintain).
• No ads! This will be a continuing goal here. The revenue from ads is so small and they're so annoying that I have long been solidly in favor of banning all advertising and relying on reader donations for the money to keep the site up and running. This may be the last item on this list, but it is one of the most important, never fear!

Hopefully, this whole process will allow for interested readers to (at some point) start beta-testing the new site. I will have the new site software up and running with a copy of or perhaps a stripped-down database to play around with. This will mean the old site will still stay the same for all new columns, but there will be a separate "feel free to play with it and make suggestions or report bugs" area for readers to explore as well. When the new software is deemed working and (hopefully) bug-free, then we will have a big switchover and the new software will start running the main (public) site, where "www.chrisweigant.com" points. So any readers interested in providing feedback will be able to help with the process, while those who aren't interested will just see the old site until suddenly and seamlessly it is replaced with the new site.

This whole upgrade is long overdue. This website was designed in 2006 and updated only once, in 2013 (or was it 2014? I forget...). It was an adequate blog site when it appeared, but now is woefully out of date in multiple ways.

So as I said, the pledge drive will appear at some point after the long weekend, and once again I'll be begging everyone for donations, but this time around you'll be able to see a real investment in the site happen very soon afterwards. And I don't know about you all, but I find that something to be truly thankful for!

Have a great turkey day, everyone!

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant