No, but a link to your site will help to better understand.
Here is the temp address:
motoxpress.com/wordpress/
Pages are not meant to display multiple posts.
If you want posts… think in posts and categories – not Pages.
Ok. Do you see my intention? What would you recomend? I am trying to build a site that functions like a normal site but also has a blog component. The key is to use WP to maintain all of it.
You can create a static front page either with a plugin or hacking your own. It will display html and you can direct people to your pages.
Some things you will want to look at are ways to customize your page order so they are organized the way you’d have an old html menu. Maybe a plugin or try hacking your sidebar to create your own links.
Likewise for the posts you just need to minimize how important it looks in the menu. Remove all archive links. Rename the default category “blog” and it will appear in your sidebar.
Would it just be better to have two WP installs? That way I could use two separate themes.
No, you don’t need 2 installs.
Just follow what holly2000 said.
I think I see where I was dis oriented in my approach. I was attempting to make the general template fit the pages of the site and apply a different template to the blog. What I should do is the reverse. Apply the custom templates to the pages and let the standard blog elements stand on the general template so they will apply to the blog. Sound reasonable?
In a way… yes. Actually, WP is more customizable than that.
You can have custom templates for:
Pages (use capital P to avoid misunderstanding)
Category Templates:
http://codex.ww.wp.xz.cn/Category_Templates
Single posts:
http://guff.szub.net/2005/07/21/post-templates-by-category/
Also a good general article about how the template files work:
http://codex.ww.wp.xz.cn/Template_Hierarchy