Somewhat Reluctantly, a Designer

Hey Dan, and all,

I’ll send the invites out again to hopefully allow you to sign in as an author. So far just Josh and Anne are called “followers,” which I think is something different than authors, and I wonder, were you, Dan, also unable to sign in as a follower, too? And Josh, Anne, did you also have difficulty accepting author invitations? For that matter, I don’t even know what a follower is, as distinct from an author or someone who simply looks at the site without being a follower or author, as apparently you did, Dan. Mom, too. You are, it seems, iconless “visitors.”

Meanwhile, I don’t even know how one gets an icon, if that’s even the right name for it. All I know is what my kids did to Josh on my smart phone. Any time Josh calls, a picture slightly different than his symposian icon pops up, and any time I want to call him, I have to scroll past the J’s and the L’s to O, for Old Man Lamken. I swear, Josh, I’d change that if I knew how to. Guess I need Smart Phones for Dummies. Or less clownish kids.

So there would seem to be authors, followers, visitors. And, somewhat reluctantly, a designer. For the record, I don’t mind being an even keeled co-author, or symposian visitor, or, yes, a fellow follower of Christ, but designer? What? Wait... Oh, okay.

According to the design page – how do I let others into the design page? — I am currently the only author. It seems, if we are bashing our bosses and bringing up personal stuff, we ought to limit the site to authors only, but until you guys get signed in as authors or direct me otherwise, I will have to keep this as an open access blog. No, wait, I can limit the site to “only people I choose.” Which means there are authors, followers, visitors and then ...the chosen. However, I can only choose people with gmail addresses, so, until you all get on board, we’re back to an “anyone” site.

Not that anyone else is looking. There are stats on the design page that indicate only two countries, US and Czech, have signed in to this site so far. By comparison, my Thirty Birds site somehow has people looking in from the Phillippines, India, Germany (but not, by the way, Czech). I’m guessing this is because I gave it a registered domain name.

Anyway, for now, I don’t mind doing the posting of our first couple months of sympofied emails. If ever we get into multiple authorship, though, I propose a few rules. First, to allow us to keep the more personal stuff to the side, no posts unless they are directed to all. I wouldn’t mind sharing what I sent to Mom for her birthday, or talking Dan into sharing a poem or two he has sent to me separately, but I’ll let the authors do the sharing first. Second... Oh, heck, there is no second.

In the mean time, if there wasn’t already enough for a designer to think about, I am trying to give you all separate fonts. The blog only gives seven options, so I started going in alpha order by age. I’m Ariel, Dan’s Georgia, Josh is Trebuchet and Anne’s Verdana. Except I forgot Mom, so I guess she will get Courier. If there are any objections, please speak up, although your only other options are Helvetica and Times.

For now,

Designer Jon