“This is my blog. There are many like it but this one is mine.”
About the Author
As you may have guessed by the inordinately ornate logo located above, you’ve stumbled upon the blog of one J. Bradford Dillon, but you can just call me Brad. My parents named me John, but called me Brad, for reasons unbeknownst to me. Putting the initial before my spoken name puts me in the ranks of such men as F. Scott Fitzgerald, W. Somerset Maugham, and M. Night Shyamalan (Pre-Vilage), as well as some less reputable gents like G. Gordon Liddy, E. Howard Hunt, and M. Night Shyamalan (Post-Vilage). Read that as you will.
Professional Life
I work as an Interactive Developer for a design studio somewhere in Atlanta, Georgia. I spend most of my time creating HTML & CSS, with a bit of Javascript thrown in for good measure. I also count Adobe Flash and ActionScript 3.0 in my frontend toolbelt. Around back, I’m quite experienced with PHP and XML, though I still prefer to refer to the latter as MAGMA, because that is way more awesomer. Still with me? That was a lot of acronyms in abbr tags (thanks XHTML). Do you need a glass of water? Grab some Mentos, I’ll wait.
Family Life
I would be incredibly remiss if I failed to mention the most important thing in my life: my family. First, let me explain a few subtle nuances of this site’s design. The lion in the affore mentioned logo is actually part of my family crest. The Dillon family hails from Ireland, where we had been exiled from France, where the name had been De Leon (as in Ponce De Leon). Our family motto was “Dum Spiro Spero” (While I breathe, I hope), a motto shared by many other families of that time. I don’t really have any connection to my heritage, Irish, French or otherwise, but I do value family, both immediate and extended.
In August of 2008, my beautiful wife, Jennifer Lynn Dillon, and I had our first child, the lovely and always happy Nevaeh Noelle Dillon, whose arrival turned our twosome into a happy family.
About the Site
Allow me to explain a little about the design of this site. I don’t consider myself a designer, but I enjoy grids and typography as much as the next guy. This site’s design is semi-fluid, which means it can expand from 960 pixels to whatever you want. Feel free to stretch your window as far as you need to. I won’t be happy unless you do.
In the past, I’ve been known to redesign my blog monthly, clear out my content quarterly, and switch domains annually. My first blog started in ‘99, ending in ‘00. It ran on Blogger.com, using the FTP solution for hosted blogs. Since then, my blog has gone through 6 or 7 iterations, spanning 4 domains, 6 platforms and content management systems, and 9 years. Now I’m here, and I’m not planning to move anymore. It takes too much energy, and it’s just not worth it. There’s something to be said of evolution, but longevity is so much tastier.
About the Content
This site is broken into two segments: Articles and bookmarks (dubbed “Deviations”). You can expect articles to be relatively lengthy, spanning topics from personal reflection on family life and growing older to more technical topics like markup, web standards, and accessibility. Hopefully both will be written in a manner that will be both engaging and entertaining.
Have any questions about the site, the contents, or my work? Please get in touch with me. I may not always be prompt, but I’m always available to talk.
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