I’m going to get a bit personal on this post, but it’s for a very important reason so bear with me. I’ve got two small children and until February 17th this year I had four nephews who were all younger than my kids. Now I only have three nephews. I only have three nephews because Derek was murdered. He wasn’t even two years old yet. There is a lot surrounding the circumstances of his death that, frankly, doesn’t add up.
Sammy, Derek’s younger brother, was also hurt – though we still don’t have a straight story on that either. The wonderful thing is that Sammy is fine. His broken leg healed, and he’s home with his father – where he ought to stay. This brings us to the purpose of this post – Derek & Sammy is a website that we as a family set up in order to have a place to share Derek & Sammy’s story.
There are also buttons, shirts, bumper stickers and other gifts available for purchase via Zazzle and CafePress.
It is our hope that these things will serve as catalysts for dialog about the importance of having safe support system surrounding families with small children, responsibly choosing who is involved in children’s lives, and more than that will hopefully serve as an aid to helping keep Sammy safe from future injury or dangerous situations.
Please visit the website and/or “like” Derek & Sammy on Facebook. Help spread the word so that we can keep tragedies like this from happening to other families.
You know, I really do love my job. I love that I get to build websites and get paid for it. Whats more, because I freelance I meet a lot of different people – different temperaments, different ages, different experiences with computers and the web, different types of companies – and some of those people become my clients. Even though on some basic level they’ve all come to me out of the same need, because of the variety of people/companies there is a lot of different, specific needs. Yea, the code all has the same structure, but it is the stuff between the tags that makes each job interesting.
I’ve been freelancing full-time (oxymoron?) for nearly two years now, and I can tell you this: No two jobs are the same, because no two people are the same. Moreover, I’m grateful for that. My job is never boring. With each site I learn something new because each client needs something different.
I had a client sincerely ask me recently, “Are you having fun?” You know what? I really am. I don’t stop to think about it very often – certainly not nearly as often as I should – but this job is a gift. Each new client that hires me is a blessing, and I’m so grateful that I am entrusted with building their websites.
Yes, I realize that it isn’t actually autumn yet, but I’ve just launched a major graphical change on the site – so if you’re reading this via RSS or on Facebook you’ll want to click over and check it out. I’ve also got some awesome new folding business cards from Vista Print!
Yesterday I finally upgraded to the latest release of WordPress, there’s a ton of new features on the back end, some of which I love and some of which I’m going to have to get used to. In honor of the new platform I’m working on a new theme – until then I’ve modified WordPress’s new default theme.
Oh, and I’m totally watching a documentary on Helvetica. My life is awesome.
This post is meant to be largely biographical – a glimpse behind the curtain, if you will. Since my ventures into freelancing have been done largely for personal and passionate reasons I felt a post about how this all came to be might be helpful for prospective clients – I hope it will help you understand why I do what I do, and that you will feel confident in entrusting your online presence to me. Read more »
