(a) I hope that enough people support Jason Kottke that he can make it as a full-time blogger. I threw my change in the guitar case.
(b) Speaking of supporting people, Blogarians band together today to call attention to the situation of the Iranian bloggers Mojtaba and Arash.
(b) If a place like Seabury wanted to start with its MT-based web page and commission someone to redesign it using CSS and templates — something like a page from the CSS Zen Garden — roughly what ought they expect to pay? The question will probably turn out to be purely hypothetical, but the answer should be worth learning.
I don’t know what it would cost to hire a professional web designer, but why not ask one? Virtually all professional designers have their own web pages with contact information, including Standards guru Jeffery Zeldman at http://www.zeldman.com, CSS guru Eric Meyer at http://www.meyerweb.com or (since you mention the Zen Garden) David Shea at http://www.mezzoblue.com. Be prepared to provide a link to the present site, an estimate of its size and any other information you may think is appropriate. In most businesses, estimates are free.
And no, I’m not volunteering. I don’t know MT, and I’m an amateur at this.