Background

This site originated as a Blogspot blog 1 back in 2005 just a couple months before Rachel and I were married. I wanted a place to post pictures, write thoughts about things, and generally anything I find interesting. I also started wanting to get more familiar with web design and things. I ended up hacking the theme of that blog to death.

At some point I got my own domain, and the blog existed as a subset of the main domain (tjdraper.com/blog). I don’t remember what I was doing with the main site. I do remember the design was horrible, and so was my design taste. I was still publishing the blog through blogger. Then I decided that the main focus of the site should be the blog. I also wanted a better publishing system, a full CMS. I went with ExpressionEngine Core because of it’s ease of use and flexibility for designers (I’m now fairly skilled in ExpressionEngine). I copied and pasted about 2 years of blog posts by hand from Blogger to ExpressionEngine. 2

With the upgrade to ExpressionEngine 2, EllisLab killed the free for non-commercial use ExpressionEngine Core. I like free software if it’s good, but I also understand the need for good software to be paid for. I purchased a personal license of ExpressionEngine 2, and the Multiple Site Manager so I could run three sites on one ExpressionEngine installation. This installation of ExpressionEngine 2 is now running TJDraper.com, AppleUserPro.com, and TwoEdgeMedia.com.

Design

This is the 4th major design of TJDraper.com and I’m quite proud of it. It is a culmination of the years I have spent learning about web design and learning about my own tastes. I don’t like busy sites, I don’t like flashy ads all over the place, and most of all, I don’t like websites that take a year and a day to load. So my main goals were beauty, good taste, efficient coding methods, and standards compliance. However, on standards compliance I have been a bit lax. I focused more on making sure the site displayed the way I wanted in all browsers. So standards compliance is really about 98% (arbitrary number) there.

The colors of this current design are not a long way from design 3 (which had a little taste of green and purple here and there, and not quite so much red and brown).

Why No Comments

I disabled comments when I went for this re-design. Why? First, the simple fact is, hardly anyone ever commented here. I’m just not that important. I don’t have that many readers. Getting all the coding, margins, input forms, layout, and everything else set up for comments when I redesign takes almost as long as implementing the rest of the design. It just isn’t worth it to me.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, I’ve come a long way in my thinking on this. I used to think comments were essential to a blog or online publication. And I loved to think people were engaged enough to comment on my posts. It was sort of self serving. I’ve come to realize that traditional commenting systems represent everything that is wrong with the web. In fact, I don’t even bother to read comments on any of the sites I visit anymore that actually still use comments. The comments are full of ignorant trolls who want nothing more than to slander the author, or bash the other commenters. I’m not saying that’s true of most people who would comment here, but a while back (probably a couple years ago), I did have to do some comment moderation.

Desktop Software

Server

CMS

About Me and my Family

fam (photo by David Price, Black Olive Studios)

Me

Homeschool graduate, husband to Rachel, father to three wonderful children

If there were a certification for Apple Geek I would have it. I love almost everything Apple makes. I have a MacBook Pro (17-inch, early 2011) and iPhone 4S, 32 Gigabyte (these serve me for my work, and for play). My media center is a Mac Mini (mid 2007). My wifi router is an Apple Time Capsule (1st Generation, 1 Gigabyte). My Wife’s computer is a MacBook (Mid 2007). And the kids have inherited a computer from Rachel’s grandpa; iMac (summer 2001) (it runs Mac OS 9.2 and everything). They love it.

Aside from being an Apple Geek, I also like to design websites. Specifically, I love HTML, CSS, and ExpressionEngine.

My main bread and butter is as a video editor and videographer.

I also enjoy writing about Apple and related technologies. I call myself an amateur writer. I primarily write about these things on my website AppleUserPro. I have also acquired a very part time writing gig at Mac.Appstorm.

for a few more details about me and what you should expect from me, see this article: Things you might like to know about me

Rachel

Homeschool graduate, wife to TJ, mother to three wonderful children

Having majored in Math, I would call Rachel a math geek. She also enjoys mothering our three little ones, and is passionate about her callings in life. She teaches a logic class at our Church’s homeschool co-op every Tuesday, and has begun homeschooling our oldest and thoroughly enjoys it.

Allen

Allen is my oldest, he’s very particular about everything of which he is aware, he’s a picky eater, and though quite fastidious he can still be very much a boy.

Natasha

Natasha is a fireball of unstoppable energy. She is as cute as a button and she knows it too. She enjoys her baby dolls, but is quite often seen playing with Allen and his things as well as her more girly toys.

Titus

Titus seems to be a very sensitive boy at this very early stage in his life. While a little more easy going than the first two I wouldn’t exactly describe him as laid back. He enjoys playing with his siblings when they aren’t being too rough.

The Theology

We are Reformed Presbyterian in view and practice, and are currently members of a wonderful church and covenant community, Heritage Church. Some of the more distinctive points of the Draper family are as follows:

Covenant Children

We believe that the New Covenant is for believers and their families. And just as in the Old Covenant where the children were given the sign and seal of the covenant in circumcision, so too do New Covenant children receive the sign and seal of our Christian faith; that of baptism.

We believe that Christian Parents are to raise their covenant children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Christian children do not “belong” to the parent, nor do they belong to the evil one. They belong to Christ. They are not enemies of the gospel, they are Christ’s disciples. Christian parents are to realize that the Children the Lord entrusts to them are not their own but Christ’s. We are to take heed to follow the instructions of the Bible when it comes to raising our children. We are to be faithful to teach them correct and sound doctrine, in short we are responsible for every aspect of the child’s training. We do not have the authority to abdicate and hand that off to someone else. Not to the Church, not to government schools, but we bear the weight and responsibility entirely. 3

Confessions and Affiliations

We subscribe to:

And we are members of Heritage Church which is in the Covenant Presbyterian Denomination.

The Doctrines of Grace (often referred to as Calvinism)

We affirm the five points of Calvinism as properly and Biblically understood (In other words we deny Hyper Calvinism).

  • Total Depravity (or completely inability to save one’s self, or even to make a decision to call upon Christ)
  • Unconditional Election (God has written History, and has already chosen his elect)
  • Limited Atonement (that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross accomplished all that it was intended to. Sometimes referred to as the efficacy of the atonement)
  • Irresistible Grace (God saves those whom he purposes to)
  • Perseverance of the Saints (those who are elect will persevere in the faith to the end)
Other points of doctrine we affirm
  • Post Millennialism (Christ is ruling and reigning right now. Christ is King!)
  • Covenant Renewal Worship
  • Liturgical Worship
  • Partial Preterism

And we desire to see a modern day reformation which would include among other things (in no particular order):

  • A recovery of the singing of Psalms
  • A Proper understanding of the place of Lord’s Day Worship
  • An acknowledgment of the place of the Church within what is commonly referred to as the three spheres of authority
  • A proper understanding of the Covenant as it relates to Believers in the New Covenant
  • An understanding of roles within the home, specifically of the role of the Father. This would also include a turning of the father’s heart to His Children
  • Generational Faithfulness
  • A return to the Covenant Community of believers
  • A proper understanding of the Lordship of Jesus Christ (this is closely tied to Post Millennialism)

  1. tjdraper.blogspot.com was the address of the old Blogspot blog, but that now redirects back to this site ↩

  2. Yeah, I was a little bit insane to do that back then and I probably wouldn’t do it again if I were in the same position again today. ↩

  3. The disclaimer must always be added here that I use the term responsibility, not in a way that rules out anyone else teaching our Children anything at all. For instance we, neither I nor Rachel are competent violin teachers and neither of us can play that instrument at all. We would therefore employ an instructor should our children need training in violin. That does not mean we abdicate our responsibility in this matter. ↩