Welcome to My New Online Home!

Last updated on: August 27, 2011 at 7:12 am by John Shore

Welcome to My New Online Home! 2011-08-27T07:12:53-08:00 John Shore

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

This is Dan Wilkinson, of Wilkinson Web Design. As you can see, he lives in the woods. It’s so sad. He’s such a talented web designer. I don’t know what happened to his life. But now he has to build all of his websites from his mobile phone. Doesn’t he do awesome work, though? Look at my brand-new website right here! Amazing, right? It took Dan two-and-a-half years to build it by tapping on his cell phone in the woods. But it was totally worth it, don’t you think?

I’d pay him for building this site, but I know he’d only spend the money on weenies, toilet paper, and a razor for his head. So I dunno. We’ll see.

Ha, ha, ha. I’m sure Dan is laughing at this right now. Except that he has no sense of humor. So probably not. But I’m sure that somewhere, out in a meadow or underneath a tree, he’s right now staring at his phone, wondering if I’m being funny.

Okay, so seriously. About Our Man Dan. A while back I posted on my blog the founding tenets of ThruWay Christians. I got a crazy response to it; people loved it. So much so that, to be honest, I felt sort of morally obliged to create some kind of online place where the people who felt so enthusiastically about the document could hang out.

Out of nowhere Dan pretty immediately popped out of Facebook and volunteered to do it. Within, like, fifteen minutes, we had ThruwayChristians.com and the ThruWay Christian forum. (As you’ll see if you go there, I have about no idea what to actually do with TWC.com. But that’s another story.)

And Dan didn’t just build those sites. He took full responsibility for them. He dealt with the host, he told me what I was supposed to do, he coordinated with another awesome volunteer, Lisa Salazar, who stepped forward to design the fantastic TWC logo. And through it all Dan was just as pleasant as a warm afternoon breeze across one of the fields in which he wakes up every morning.

It was seriously impressive. It was Dan’s attitude that so bowled me over. Calm, kind, smart … sane. The guy was just … a miracle of even-keeledness.

And now he’s built me this site. Not for free or anything. Just because he’s homeless doesn’t mean he’s clueless.

The astounding thing about Dan is that he never, ever complains, or in any way seems even vaguely grumpy or snarky. You would not believe what he did to build this site. He migrated my site over from BlueHost, where it had been, to HostCo, where it is now. (HostCo rocks so hard I can’t even tell you. If you’re looking for the home for your site, benefit from the research that brought Dan to conclude HostCo was the way to go. He was right. It is. Those guys are amazing.) Dan set everything up; he hand-walked my site to its new server; he tested everything—and through it all he never for a moment failed to be anything but gracious, funny, helpful, patient, and mind-bogglingly knowledgeable.

A month or so later, I sort of all in a moment saw what I wanted for this website. So I sketched it out, sent that plan to Dan the man, and asked him if he thought it was anything he could build.

And just look what he did with it. The truly amazing thing about Dan is that he has infinite technical chops and extremely finely tuned aesthetic sensibilities. That such a rare combo. He’s an artist. And, again, through it all—through all my questions, all my phone calls, all my trying to help with the site and basically screwing up everything he’d built or was planning to—Dan remained unflaggingly easy going.

Plus, he enabled me to make awesome pull-quotes that in no way interfere with the flow of the text!

Could this site be more beautiful—not to mention functionally unique? See those six “Posts by Theme” boxes on the front page? Those aren’t just modular plug-ins. Dan built those. Just looking at them makes me want to hug Dan if he’d recently showered.

Obviously, you’re invited to poke around here all you want. Let me know if you find anything hinky; I’m sure we’ve still got some kinks to work out in this brand spanking new site. (Once we’re all stabilized here, we’re going to install on this blog the fully buffed-out Disqus comment management system. One of my primary motivations for getting this new site built was to give my phenomenal community of commenters a venue worthy of their work. I can’t wait till we get Disqus running here.)

Thank you for this, Dan Wilkinson. When I grow up, I want to have the quality of character anywhere near that which you possess.

Personal

Previous Post

August 25, 2011

"You're a fat, worthless psycho with a piggy daughter and a loser son."

Next Post

August 27, 2011 When Your Heart Leaves Home

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Christian Issues Christian Spirituality Dear John En Espanol Everywhere She's Not Humor Look See Pastor Bob's Corner Personal Portuguese Relationships Russian Short-short story Smith Family Chronicles Uncategorized

Select a Month March 2024 August 2022 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 February 2020 December 2019 June 2019 December 2018 May 2018 May 2017 January 2017 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which book of the Bible ends with "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Proverbs Psalms Isaiah Revelation

Books by This Author Books by John Shore

See All Titles »