Jayson Whelpley

Looking Forward, Looking Back

2010-09-07T13:28:08Z

Today starts my second week in my cubicle.

I’m working at Campus Crusade for Christ’s headquarters in Orlando, FL. The position may only be for a year (10 months, really), but we’ve really moved and it’s a real change and challenge for my wife and I.

We’ve developed friends here already, but (so far) they’re shallow (as in “not deep”). I enjoy the team that I’m working on and really believe that it’s will be a good fit – there’s sufficient freedom to work as well as a decent amount of structure to help me know what my job really is. The members of my team (I’m working in the US Communications group and working on web publishing) are fun and the right kind of dissimilar to make it a lot of fun.

We miss friends from DC and from our neighborhood in Arlington. A lot.

Even now I’m a little teary thinking of the people who left before we did. The teammates that we worked closely with – laughed, debated and fought with. I am tempted to want to “go back.”

I miss our small group, the friends that we’ve now had for 2 1/2 years and the ones that we met 6 months or just under a year ago. I miss my unofficial small-group men who helped to heal my heart and to rile my debating nature.

I miss the sweet Pakistani family that lived below us – mom, dad and 4 kids. I miss helping with math & social studies homework. I miss trying to explain what it means to be a good tipper and a good grownup – but in a way that doesn’t communicate that those things are what determine your value and worthiness as a person.

I miss the church that has been the perfect imperfect home for us for three years.

I’m looking forward though. To an opportunity to do church different than we usually have. To work in a job that is more defined than I’ve ever had, yet as free and open as well. I’m looking forward to new friends that we may have to let go in a year (in the normal CCC fashion).

Ultimately, I am learning to trust God with my past and my future. It will be good.

John Bunyan

2010-08-28T14:46:23Z

Run, John, run the law commands,
But gives me neither feet nor hands;
Far better news the gospel brings:
It bids me fly; it gives me wings.

Moving Day

2010-08-05T04:20:59Z

We started packing up our apartment yesterday. This moving stuff is getting REAL!

Boxes everywhere, stuff unusable for 3 weeks. Here we go!

Some Cabal For Everyone

2010-08-04T05:24:37Z

For about a year and a half now, I’ve been blessed to be a part of a group of men who challenge me to a closer walk with Jesus and to a more clearly thought-through theology. We come from different Christian traditions, and while we are now all solidly “evangelical” we very often find ourselves disagreeing about different points of theology and applications of the Gospel. Over pints of beer, cups of coffee and glasses of wine we’ve spent hours arguing, laughing and holding each other to the plumb line of the Gospel.

This summer has brought the dispersion of the group over a span of 10 time zones, from Germany to Portland. But this has not not destroyed the Cabal. We’ve been updating each other on life, cares and prayer requests through email and plotting a way to do 7-way video conferencing.

Yesterday brought the delivery of our disagreements, care and prayers back to place where the public can be disturbed by them. We’ll also allow you to join in the conversation (there is a comment section).

GospelCabal.com is our new sticky table, I am even going to try to write my entries while imbibing something fermented or brewed, but also bathed in prayer and with a Bible before my eyes and heart. Join us.

What the Post?

2010-07-07T22:15:20Z

So, for the past few weeks I’ve been getting 200+ visits per day on a worthless post that I made about Malcolm Gladwell back in April.

This has added up to more than 2,000 visits. The weird part is that they’re not coming from any link or from a Google search. Google analytics is showing them as direct traffic.

Are there any geniuses out there who might help me with this?

I know there’s been a lull…

2010-07-06T18:12:43Z

I’ve been traveling a ton lately.

I have some stuff for you soon.

For those of you visiting from benandjacq.com, welcome. There’s not much on my main page now, but here are some of my best from this year so far:

Make it Make Sense (Good Design)

2010-06-10T17:35:52Z

Your website, flier, magazine, or whatever product – should make sense. It should be intuitive and take into consideration the ways that people will really use it.

Last week, fellow NoVA resident Nathan Herald wrote about his love of good product design.

I want to create content management systems, ecommerce platforms, reusable tools, and other internet related things. I also catch myself wanting to design clothing, bags, storage solutions, and other things that I interact with often. If I can’t find something I love then I want to make it.

[...]

A balance between being terribly useful and practical while being awesomely intuitive and usable and pleasing to the eye seems to be very important to me. I see examples of this everywhere in my house: iPhone, Puma shoes, white fitted hat, front pocket wallet, G2 .5mm pens, moleskins, and many more.

While his shorts of choice (they are held together by about 40 safety pins) might call this love of his into doubt, he makes a great point. The products & websites that we love are the ones that balance beauty and intuitive design.

Moleskine products lay flat so it’s easy to write in them.
Google’s main page is their logo and a search box. (Until today, I guess.)
The iPhone and iPad have become famous for how easy they are to use for a complete novice.

This week two sites that I spend a lot of time on released updates to their design.

DesiringGod.com rolled out a new beta version of their site. I’m not concerned as much with the features as the fact that they added a video with their senior web manager (the ministry has a whole team for their website) explaining the reason why they did. The redesign is to better mobilize people to use the site and to help them be empowered to use the information there in the rest of their lives.

Crossway Bible publishers released a new edition of the English Standard Version’s website. I love the new design. (Some of the better features require you to purchase access to the study notes.)

Linked Note Scrolling: This was my biggest peve in the old version. I’d be reading a passage and wanted to look at the notes on that passage and I’d have to scroll around to find them on the side. Now the two boxes are linked. When I am at verse 5 so is the verse pane.
Movable Tool Tabs: Do you want your notes on the right? Drag them there. On the left? Drag them back.
Bookmarks: you can place virtual bookmarks in your online Bible. They work just like real ones. They stay until you move them somewhere else and all you have to do is click on one of them to go to that passage.
Infinite Scrolling: You don’t ever have to use pagination links to go to the next chapter, just keep scrolling down.
Column Reordering: Want your sidebars on the left? Right? Both sides? Just one sidebar? Do it.
Highlighting & Sharing: Just highlight a passage and choose a color or click the share (or copy or add a note) link.

Websites should be fully featured and beautiful.

How do you move toward this in the things you create & use?

Pictures from the past week or so.

2010-06-07T20:42:01Z

I found the Hipstamatic and Quadcam apps for the iPhone.

[View with PicLens]

Churning…

2010-06-07T19:23:11Z

I have a lot of things that I would like to post about this week. This is my letter of intent to do so. Here’s the list:

Lost.
Photos of the past few weeks.
DesiringGod.com redesign.
Scarlet City Project.
Moving to Orlando.
Sermon at church this week.
Oil Geyser in the Gulf (it’s not a “spill”)

I keep waiting…

2010-06-03T14:45:48Z

But it appears that this section of my feed reader is dead.

Sad.