Since I am too new to post directly to the blog tutorial comments, I hope someone more senior can post this advice for others.
portlet.menu
If you followed the instructions above, but can not see the userMenu view after logging in to the blog, then you may have forgotten to update the default layout in the customized base controller class: Controller in /protected/components/Controller.php
Change:
public $layout=’//layouts/column1’;
To:
public $layout=’//layouts/column2’;
Hope this saves someone else some time.