splash pg —w/ recent post?

well…I think I complicated my task and now I’m begging for more support. I decided that I want a different theme look for my splash page — so I utilize different css styles and have the page under my root directory:

http://www.chazsouthard.org/splash_test7.html

my current weblog is under a different directory, which is:

http://www.chazsouthard.org/wordpress/index.php

now, I’m still in the testing and development phase of this new splash page — and I know that I have it labeled as a .html. so I think my first step would be to relabel it as a.php. but from there, somehow, I need to query code from a different directory.

I’d like the php code to appear under the heading journey/journal….right now I just have some dummy text just for design sake.

So I guess my questions are —
do I have to move the splash page into my Word press directory?
Is it possible to pull PHP code from that directory?

I’ve tried a bunch of different ways already and I keep on getting roadblocks with the PHP code. As you can tell on the PHP fool — and I’m struggling in trying to figure out how to fit the code into this page.

I’ve read over all the suggestions — but I’m still at a loss…..is there a simple solution or is is very in depth?

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated — I am a quadriplegic so hand coding takes in quite awhile and any help is welcomed with great gratitude. Thank you in advance–

chaz

Moshu-you’ve been so incredibly helpful and I kind of now understand “the loop”

for the most part, now I have the splash page working. I’m just trying to fine tune it and I have two other questions.(my apologies for being such a bother and nag on this issue, I don’t know where I’d be without all the help of moderators…..you guys deserve a big paycheck at the end of the day)

here’s the code that I used to query from my weblog to my splash page:
<?php if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?>

<?php if ( !(in_category('3')) ) { ?>

<div class="post">

<h2><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2>

<small><?php the_time('F jS, Y'); ?></small>

<div class="entry">
<?php the_excerpt(); ?>
</div>

</div> <!-- closes the first div box -->

<?php } ?> <!-- Close the if statement. -->

<?php endwhile; else: ?>
<p>Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.</p>
<?php endif; ?>

and so far it does query all of the excerpts of my last five weblog entries. So my final questions are:

1. How do I limit the query to just one single Post, without changing my options in my Word press dashboard?

2. with the given excerpt that displays in a splash page. How do I edit the PHP code so that it brings me directly to my web-log index page, instead of bringing me to the actual single Post page?

my current testing splash page is located on:
http://www.chazsouthard.org/splash_3.php

is that enough questions?… many thanks for also writing the well-written codex–it is very user-friendly and understandable even to a person like me who has little understanding of php…I don’t know if you receive enough appreciation for all of your support — but I know many people/Web loggers are grateful and lucky to have it.