Slow motion replay

My blog is a happy oasis away from the idiocy that I deal with in everyday life. I work damn hard in just about everything that I do, but it doesn't seem to pay off a lot of the time.

It pays off more often with my blog. The blog is my baby, my creation, and I try to make sure it's working as smoothly as I can. The successes on Night Owl Cards far outweigh the failures.

But there is one issue that my diligence can't seem to fix.

I have received complaints periodically that it takes a long time for my blog to load. At first I shrugged off these comments. Anything worth having is worth waiting for, right? Besides, this blog was for me, not anyone else and their damn computer.

But as blogging continued to connect me with collectors around the country and beyond, I began to place greater importance in what others had to say, to the extent that the periodic complaints of the "slow-loading" Night Owl Cards started to bother me.

Finally, I decided to do something about it. About a month ago, I gutted half of my sidebar. I removed images and categories. I moved some of the stuff to the tabs that you now see underneath the banner. I think things are now easier to find and the blog looks better, too.

After getting things the way I wanted them, I tested and re-tested the blog. It seemed to load a lot more quickly. No more spinning wheel or circle or whatever device you have that tells you that, yes, jackass, you're STILL WAITING.

I tested it on my computer at work, too, and got the same result. It loaded more quickly there, too.

Problem solved. I thought.

Yesterday, a couple of comments on this post made me think the slow-loading problem may never go away. It was deflating.

Perhaps it still loads slower than other blogs because of all the card images I use. If that's the case, I'm just going to have to be a slow, backward hayseed, because I'm not cutting back on the images.

But I'm also wondering whether people are remembering the old days of Night Owl Cards -- one whole month ago -- and haven't truly noted the changes of the last month. Maybe the quicker speed hasn't registered yet.

Or maybe it's just as slow as before.

So, what's the deal? Have you noticed any change in the loading speed of this blog recently? Are things quicker, the same, or slower?

Would you like it if I took more drastic action to make it quicker? Or doesn't it matter?

I'll take your comments under advisement, but realize that I may chuck any recommendations for a new, shiny, sparkly blog gadget that I found that means my blog will load sometime in 2017.

Oh, and as a thanks to the person who inspired me to ask for some advice instead of quietly sulking, here are some cards recently sent by Brian at Play at the Plate:

Thanks, Brian.

And thanks for your kind comments, too.