Hello, my name is Jhames

I’ve reached an age where I roll my eyes after reading younger designers’ ranting diatribes about the current state of web design. If I rolled my eyes back any further, I swear I’d awaken in on the set of “Doctor Who” from the 1970s. These younger designers raise their stylī in the air and exclaim that we require HTML to be more than just semantic markup, and how we must design websites without regard to Search Engine Optimization or universal access for the user. To dip my stylus in the same lake of hyperbole as these designers, we must employ a “pure” state of web design and force users to adopt our user environment as theirs.

“Your résumé is spotty.” Well, yes, I suppose it is if you are simply looking at the dates of my employment. But what you don’t see is the time spent between those dates, or what happened to cause so many dates in the first place. If anything, my life is one interesting story after another. And today I am going to present you, dear reader, the story behind my résumé. I only ask that if Bravo chooses to make a movie based on my life, please don’t cast Lance Bass to play me. I deserve better.

If you are young and you think you might be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or simply questioning your gender, this is for you. I came out of the closet at 15. I wrote a brief article for Scarleteen about my first crush that came with a crash course on being gay. What I didn’t write about was not telling my parents about my being gay until I was 17, months before I would graduate high school and leave for college. I didn’t really have the luxury of telling my parents as my brother broke into my room and looted through my dresser drawers. Instead of money, he found objects I kept from guys I (briefly) dated. Oh, and I think a male porno mag. In an attempt to shield himself from swift punishment for his offense, he told our parents what he found in my … Continue reading →

It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything, and I blame the previous design iteration of my website for that. I was unmotivated to interact with my site because I was never really happy with the overall design—like when you have a child that never seems to do anything right but you still love it (just not on any level below the surface). I built the previous iteration in keeping with the advent of HTML5. I did my best to keep DIV tags structured to SECTION, ARTICLE, and ASIDE. I liked the visual grid and layout of text in the design, but the actual design itself was a constant thorn in my side. The design wasn’t true to my aesthetic and I feel like I rushed something to market because of reactions to what I had done before. Kind of like the new … Continue reading →

I took this picture of Sam Storicks in January 2004 when we met for lunch in the Castro. Sam passed away last night; he was 30 years old. My first encounter with Sam was through his friend Ryan who had an account on blogspot. Ryan and Sam were friends, and following a link from Ryan’s blog to Sam’s, I came to know a young gay man living in Tucson who worked in the military. Sam had a rough start in life and he was doing what he could to restore personal order. I was hooked on Sam’s blog: his writing was acerbic and intelligent beyond someone his age. When my blog popularity was much higher, I gave Sam space on my website for him to keep a blog, away from prying eyes. He eventually reserved his own domain and became a (truly) independent blogger. It … Continue reading →

Two years ago I bought an iPhone 3G. I never desired the iPhone – I bought myself the first generation PRADA mobile by LG and I ♥ that phone wholeheartedly – I only bought one because my former business partners wanted our company to design and develop iPhone apps. In order to build these apps, we needed iPhones. I couldn’t argue with that logic so I packed away my PRADA mobile, canceled my contract with T-Mobile, and waited in line with every other crazed consumer for hours to own the iPhone 3G. My phone bill with T-Mobile was well under $80 a month. My original phone bill with AT&T was close to $160 a month, based on services I always had with T-Mobile. Based on my monthly usage for minutes et al, I was able to reduce my monthly bill to $130. So not … Continue reading →

Last week, we went to see Jóhann Jóhannsson at The Triple Door. The show was his Seattle debut and I was excited to hear Jóhann perform with a string quartet. We were seated at a table toward the back of the theater where other folks had purchased “standing room only” tickets. I didn’t think anything of the folks standing near our tables since we were at The Triple Door and I’ve always enjoyed concerts with minimal distraction. That was until a group of people behind our table decided to hold a conversation as the opening artists were performing onstage. It wasn’t bad enough that people thought they were more important than the musicians, but other people around us decided to join in the sense of entitlement and talk amongst themselves. I had absolutely no problem turning around, looking at one of the women dead in the … Continue reading →

Hey kids! Fun story. Know what happens when you install the new WordPress 3.0 beta? It breaks your previous template! And then you don’t have anything to show people except a blank screen. How fun is that? Oh, the good times. Stay tuned, I am incredibly busy and will hopefully have all sorts of good news to share with you. And maybe a working WordPress template. Who knows!

Jesus, is it already the end of March? I swear time is flying out the window. Well, we’re here together now, so let’s make the most of it with another vegan recipe. From me to you. Using my vanilla cake recipe, I made its cocoa counterpart and folded in 2/3 cups melted chocolate chips. A cake this decadent deserves an equally sinful frosting. And nothing says “Oh. My. God.” like chocolate and pistachios. Don’t believe me? Make a pistachio marzipan sometime and coat it in chocolate. We’ll talk after you change your drawers.

A friend and former coworker of mine is venturing into business for himself: a “have IA – will travel” enterprise, if you will. He’s enjoyed my past entries about freelance and has mentioned (more than once) that we should talk more over drinks sometime – code for “I want to pick your brain” – as he ventures into sole proprietorship. Since my upkeep in this blog has been less than exemplary, I thought his search for knowledge would be as good a time as any to post what (and what not) to do in business. I should preface this entry by stating a) I’ve learned these lessons first-hand and b) you shouldn’t take what I say as gospel truth. Obviously, mileage will vary depending on how you choose to work. Without further adieu!