My wife made an interesting observation today. I write like I am working on some kind of cumulative research project meticulously gathering data and facts ultimately working toward the encyclopedia entry for who I am as a person. She didn’t quite say it in so many words but that’s the way I heard it. I think I initially wanted to argue otherwise and defend it. I have come to the conclusion that she was correct in her assessment. The whole conversation revolved around my frustration that so many other people that I have helped blog and coached somewhere along the way were succeeding where I was failing. I can write day in and out, but actually saying something that is particular to me has become a chore. I felt over the last year or two that I’ve been having some kind of extended out of body experience objectively qualifying everything I write with the filter of bland factual analysis.
I am trying a different tack. Yes, the sharp pointy things that you used to put on your teacher’s chair but now you would probably get expelled from school for doing because in our culture you were trying to kill the teacher with tetanus instead of a mere tack. Tact. Yeah that word too.
A simple journal. This is a deliberate effort to be more real. Be more myself. Something like that. I think the other voice was me too, but it was a critical, self-absorbed version of myself trying to shoot myself with the same gun I was trying to aim. Maybe it’s all a bad analogy… maybe I should just shut up my critical self and write more?
image credit to one of the most unflattering images I’ve ever taken of myself
Sorry for the lack of good updates to the blog as of late. It isn’t because I haven’t been busy. I’ve been working on a new website for my church and doing some more artistic type graphic work. We have a men’s retreat that will be taking place next month that is entitled “MANdate: 2010″ The little subtitle/tease for the retreat is “Are you ready for battle?” The graphic above is what I helped put together for the event. It is a collaborative effort between Pastor Erick and myself.
If you write a lot like I tend to do, sometimes you find yourself in a niche. It’s not a bad thing, but when you find yourself here, it’s really hard to just be yourself from time to time. The blog that used to have an objective now feels like a place you have to be someone you aren’t really. For me, it happened on my personal site and I felt like I couldn’t be myself on my personal blog. I started to give myself excuses. I redesigned the site probably 300 times now over the course of eight years. Why? To better show the person behind the site. Some of the excuses were legitimate. Some were just plain dumb. Truth is, I used a domain I had bought, that meant something to me back in college. Since then, I’ve changed. My identity is different than it was then.
I can’t promise I will write more. I’m done with promising that and not living up to my own expectations.
I will promise to be more authentic though.
For those of you who don’t know, I also do website design on the side for other people and companies. I just finished this site for PhageVax. I just thought I’d share it since this is one of the many things that has been taking up my time while my family is sick with the flu.
About the Theme
It is a wordpress-based, minimalistic theme with a rotating transparent header image overlay. I didn’t need comments, so I axed that element along with trackbacks to keep the site more manageable and user friendly. Using the background for the search box was a really nice touch I thought to make it look like a cutout area. I also added a widget area and used the image widget plugin to make the logo one that I could update easily without playing with css.
If you are interested in a wordpress-based design for your site, leave a comment and we can arrange a call to go over the details.
I am working today on a new wordpress theme for churches and ministries. There’s really not too much to see just yet, lots of editing of css. I will say that it’s more graphically oriented than many of my projects… I may actually be able to release it this afternoon if I keep at it. Who knows? Between a baby and a puppy, I might get something done.
Christian Music has always been a part of my life. So a few weeks ago when I was talking with a friend from back in my b5media days he asked me if I would be willing to write a bit about Christian Music on his site, Mission Notes. Also, Jason (www.bnpositive.com) should keep me accountable with writing a bit more frequently even around here. It’s hard to talk to a guy who writes around 1000 words a day on 5-6 different blogs and not feel like you should come up with something to write about.
Here it is and enjoy. If you would like to change the footer information, go ahead, but I would appreciate (not require) a link back to http://www.decloned.com as a gesture of goodwill. 
Download “am-i-in-sync-v1.1″ Wordpress Theme Here (updated as of 10/14/2009)
This theme natively uses some plugins that it won’t look or work right without – These are listed below:
Image Widget – This handles all images including the logo and the top three placements. Alternatively, you can just drop html for images into a text widget, but this makes it a little easier. Images are handled via a image upload script – just be sure to remove the title of the image when uploading to the ad placements at the top.
All in One Adsense and YPN – for adsense placements under posts. The top adsense area in the header is added via widget.
PixoPoint Menu Plugin – This is the plugin for the menu at the top of the header area. Without it, the theme just displays a black bar up there. I like it and thought it looked classy while offering some great functionality to the theme. If you want your menu to look like mine here, you can download this text file, and copy and paste it into the “advanced settings” main menu css editor in the options panel for this plugin. UPDATED in v1.1 – Now you can just disable the default css in the plugin options as I have written in the css into the main style.css file.
Simple Post Thumbnails – This theme is set up to use this plugin optionally. This makes it nice to add thumbnails to posts without having to use custom fields to do it. I hate working with custom fields so I avoid it at all costs.
TweetMeme Retweet Button – For that handy little retweet button in post headers. Make sure you specify the compact size.
Screenshot of the widget areas
I spent the evening tweaking decloned to add a few new features and set it up more professionally than it has been in the past. Natively, it is set up to use several different plugins, but I may go ahead and release it into the public if there is enough interest.
I originally based the theme off of the Gluttony Theme by wpdesigner but it got a bit more altered in my take of it. The theme has 6 different widget locations… including the logo, the header ad placement, the three featured areas as well as the sidebar. I may add some to the footer as well. We’ll see…
Anyway, it was inspired by Hugh’s new theme (http://www.gapingvoid.com) after David Hayward told me about how he liked it and possibly wanted something like it for nakedpastor.
Goodbye Sidebar Ads. While I am not completely kissing advertising goodbye, I am reclaiming my sidebar for more important information and purposes. I’ve had sidebar ads for as long as I can remember and always been frustrated with them. I finally got rid of them. I move links to a dedicated page (so I could add more) and updated the sidebar with actual information about who I am and what this blog is about.
Other places I do still run ads are Text Link Ads (though I haven’t sold any for awhile), the bottom of the first three posts on any page, and in feeds. Overall it’s a lot cleaner looking and ads are in designated areas rather than just clutter.
I’ve also taken a bit more of a family friendly approach to the ads displayed. If you see a questionable ad, let me know and I can get it in the blocked ads queue.
Other site updates.
- There is now a new video sidebar area that I hope to make more use of in the near future. These videos open full-size on the main page so you don’t have to go anywhere else to view them.
- I also have a finalized logo up in the top of the sidebar. This has been a long time coming and I am happy to report it’s going to stay.
- Overall, there is a better, more defined purpose to the site (as seen in the info area in the sidebar).
