Jes and Ian

There are maybe ten times a year that I really wish I had a website. Maybe I think I’ve discovered something great and I want to share it, maybe I want to rant about my ISP’s deplorable customer service, whatever – the fact is, all those times I’ve had a site. Right here at jesandian.com.

Of course, I’m very lazy

And the previous site was so tedious to update that the very thought of posting annihilated the inspiration to do so. I had to do all the XHTML markup for the new post by hand, add the prior post to an archive directory then create and update links to and fro. I updated infrequently enough that I had to re-learn the process every time. It was a retarded system that my limited understanding of web development was content with but it drove Jes and I nuts. To the point where we only updated four times in two years. The other expression-crippling limitation was the lack of photos and video support. But that’s all changed.

Go? Go where?

The erstwhile jesandian.com was hosted by Go Daddy. They were the most convenient place for me to get a domain back in 2004 and their service suited me fine. As I worked in web longer though, I realized that they weren’t the best deal in the world. For example, my 3MB jesandian.com mail account was always teetering on the brink of overflow, I begged them to up the capacity rationalizing that I’m paying for service with them whereas Google was shooting 1GB of email storage out of one of those tee shirt cannons. They robotically offered to sell me more space for some laughable $9.95/mo. Stan suggested Dreamhost to me and even gave me a promo code so I got my first year’s hosting for free one penny. The options for administrating your hosting are a million times better than Go Daddy’s were. Their savvy is right up my alley and they know how to communicate with me– Dreamhost: monthly, text-only newsletter, Go Daddy: telephone calls while I’m with clients. To get a taste of what’s what, compare their homepages: 1, 2. I’ll wait. I currently host four sites on my Dreamhost hosting plan (about $100 per year), they add on additional server space to my plan monthly and they offer free installations of content management systems for those of us who can’t wrap our heads around managing a site, but are too proud to settle for a Blogger page.

Which brings me to my apologies

Apologies to this Scott fella. Apologies to the people who think that using someone else’s work is unethical. The theme of this blog was called Barthelme, created by Scott Wallick. My original intention was to take the PHP modules inside a basic WordPress blog, re-arrange them for my own use, create a slick stylesheet and publish a unique jesandian.com. That proved to be way over my head. So instead, I chose the template that used type the way that I liked most and modified the stylesheet until I was happy. I know, it’s a cop-out. But I really can’t justify spending hours and days learning something that I don’t really ever need to know. Besides, there’s license that says that it’s okay to do what I did. Thanks, Scott.

This new site is simple, there’s no links to our web buddies, no dumbass calendar, no archive. It’s just as basic as a book about two people called Jes and Ian. Thanks for reading.

It’s simple…

If you ever want to sell me anything, wrap it in green. There’s a good chance I’ll buy it. Not neon green or puke green. Moss green. Fern green. Pea green.

Just as the heat of Summer brings nostalgia for deep blues and fiery oranges of snowy Winter nights, Spring reminds me how much I adore green. It’s all around, beginning in the bud stages, light and pale greens, peeking out from winter’s husk of brown bark and dirt. They give way to brilliant greens as translucent leaves yield to warm sunlight. Vibrant and deep greens roll across marble-smooth hillsides of short, damp grass. Wispy tops on tall grasses form an ocean of pastely, Easter green that wave at me as I pass with my windows down. Dirty greens mix with mossy reds and lichen browns to paint the rocks at the edge of the stream. Pea green wraps the torso of my buddy as she tills the soil in our humble backyard garden.

And it grew…

We started with an idea mid-Spring last year and it pushed out a pretty good yeild. I say “humble” but our plot is actually rather substantial as far as backyards in our neighborhood go. We’ve got about 100 square feet. Enough to have 8 rows about 20 feet long. I’ve been so excited about this thing since early March that I’ve drawn up plans in Illustrator so that we can map out what would go where (pencil gardening, if you will), I’ve ordered loofah seeds online so that we can have free loofah all year long and I bought my best friend a pair of tank tops (mentioned above) to wear out while working beside me. Weeding, watering and watching are the fun parts of the work. The free food is merely a reward.

Breakin’ it down to the ground…

Moving your face to knee-level in everyday life is reserved for things like changing the cat box or tying your shoes; but for a short time each year it changes the atmosphere. Suddenly, on a still, cloudy day it’s humid and cool, you smell the dirt and the insects invite you in as one of their own (mosquitoes included). Once they reach the proper timber and pitch, the plickets of water pattering the evening-lit puddles on the trough floor give you an auditory signal that a given row has been saturated sufficiently. Witnessing things you remember as black specks on your kitchen table blossoming into entire heads of lettuce and cabbage, crawling across the ground and up the fence to personally hand you moutains of cucumbers, exploding into giant florets of broccoli and cauliflower is a reward only a child could top.

Of course, you can’t eat children…anymore.