A lot has happened in my life since this web site was written. I have further learned HTML compared to my first page.
I developed character during years of singleness and the wrong relationships as I grew closer to Jesus.
I began graduate school and switched careers from Information
Technology to Counseling after earning my M.A. I moved twice. I met my wonderful
wife, moved out-of-state after buying our first house, switched
jobs a couple of times, and earned licenses and certifications to add to my resume.
Then my wife and I bought a dog, had a child, and moved into our dream house back to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.
Since then, I have found a job I enjoy and have written quite a few web sites
The Lord has been faithful this past decade and to Him I am thankful.
- January 1996: The blizzard hits. I am snowed in. I teach myself HTML and write The first Beacon Deacon Web Site.
- January 1996: Entered a time of singleness and took a hiatus from serious dating.
The Family Tree of James Arthur Johnson web site is born.
- August 1996: Start graduate school to earn a Master of Arts Degree in Counseling.
Psychology and Counseling Links page is born.
- 1996-1997: Sometime during these years, I moved the site from home.aol.com to members.aol.com when the former was retired.
- June 1999: Earn Master of Arts in Counseling
- June 1999: Move away to take a job in counseling (residential treatment), thus leaving the IT field.
- October 1999: Met the woman whom I would marry.
- June 2000: Engaged
- June 2001: Married! Then, moved.
- July 2001: First time off of North America's east coast for our honeymoon.
- September 11, 2001: That horrible day. May we never give up the battle to defeat these murderous thugs and TERRORISTS (That's what they are!)
- April 2002: Earned Licensed Professional Counselor status in VA.
- July 2002: Went across the country for the first time.
- August 2002: Began private practice and earned Licensed Professional Status in WV.
- June 2003: Bought a home out-of-state and moved.
- August 2003: Began Mental Health Agency work.
- August 2003: Bought a dog.
- Winter 2004: Attended computer refresher courses.
- April 2004: Greece!!!
- July 2004: Earned CompTIA's A+ Certification.
- October 2004: Returned to work in residential treatment as I looked for a job in Information Technology.
- December 2004: Moved back to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia to take a job in IT I love.
Jamie's Quick Links was born.
Jamie's Sci-Fi was born.
Optical Illusions page is born.
The Fibonacci Sequence, Golden Ratio, and Phi page is born.
- February 2005: Creationism Resources page is born.
- March 2005: Tidbits! v.00000001 (JavaScript, HTML, and more) is born.
- June 2005: Moved into the house we had built.
- November 2005: Script-generated seasonal and holiday text and pictures and notification added to main page.
- January 2006: The The Beacon Deacon Web Site turns 10.
- October 2006: Conversion to
compliance begins.
- And we had 2 beautiful children born to us during these years (exact date intentionally not given)!
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Beyond the First Decade
- We had another beautiful child born to us during these following years.
2007
- January 2007: Adding of the News section added to the main page.
- April 2007: A face lift to the main page to utilize space better with the News section and allow wrap-around text using CSS.
- May 2007: Centralized background control using CSS, centralized script created to allow for swapping style sheets, announcements, or other centralized site actions. Honored Virginia Tech with Orange and Maroon. Initiated use of cookies.
- September 2007: Made the main page collapsible and added Constitution Day (Sept. 17) and birthday of the Smiley Emoticon :-) (Sept. 19) to the calendaring script.
- October 2007: Added embedded soundbytes for special days: April 16, May 25, June 6, July 20, September 11, December 7, and December 25.
- November 2007: Added self-monitoring date function, so the page changes on its own when the date changes.
- December 2007: Hello BLUE! I replaced the red bullets that were present since 1996 with blue ones to compliment the site. I also removed excessive bold font use from the main page. Improved Cookie Applications: first-time visitors
will see the introduction expanded. All visitors will return to the main Beacon Deacon page in the condition it was left (i.e., collapsed or expanded sections).
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2008
- January 2008: Added special days and sub-pages for the following: January 28 to remember the Challenger Disaster and February 1 to remember the Columbia Disaster.
- February 2008: Changed coding on all of my pages to remove AOL's banners since AOL decided to put banners on all AOL pages (February 6, 2008). Here's the coding I came up with (in addition to some pointers from SpiderWebHelp@aol.com):
In the head section put the following:
<style type="text/css">
#showme {
position:absolute;
top:0px;
left:0px;
height:100%;
width:100%;
}
</style>
You don't have to use 40 for the z-index as I randomly chose. Just make sure it's high enough.
Then, in the HTML, put the following right after the opening body tag:
<div id="showme">
Finally, just before the closing body tag, put the following:
</div>
I then noticed on February 13, 2008, AOL removed the banners (but I'm keeping the code in place).
- April 2008: Added Fun Assessment to the Psychology & Counseling Page: Assessment section.
- May 2008: Began the Discourses Project.
- July 2008: Began full-time work as a web developer.
- August 2008: Began The Shack - A Book Review to the Ichthus Library: Personal Works. Also improved content layout for expanded items on the home page of the site by shortening the Google Search field, improving the lower tabular navigation, and setting left and right margins. Also set left and right margins on other pages for better content layout.
- September 2008: Added A Life Free of Clutter by Max Lucado to the Ichthus Library: Literary Works.
Completed work on The Shack - A Book Review.
- October 2008: Migration from members.aol.com to the new domain: beacondeacon.com!
Added the personal work What Do You Expect?, an article about expectations and relationships, to the Ichthus Library: Personal Works and made it also linkable from Ichthus Library: Love and Relationships, Psychology and Counseling Links: Family, Marriage, and Relationships, and from The Shack: A Book Review.
- November 2008: Added images and coding to replace the American Flag on patriotic days and for the Marines' birthday November 10. Also added navigation to the AVOID PORNOGRAPHY! page due to its growth.
- December 2008: Added additional material to the AVOID PORNOGRAPHY page.
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2009
- January 2009: Began revealing the Discourses sub site. And put quick finder links for Discourses topics in Ichthus Library: History, Science, and Evidence to link directly to topics. Made the top portion layout and navigation on this page easier for use.
- February 12, 2009: Added special days (coding, images, and some sound) for December 9 (computer mouse makes its debut), Martin Luther King Day, and February 12 (Lincoln's birthday).
- February 22, 2009: Fully opened up the Discourses sub-site.
- February 28, 2009: Though this is not on this site, it is quite an accomplishment on a sister site: I added an UNO! game I programmed in JavaScript to the site I put up for my nephews: Howz Yer Teeth?!.
- March 2009: Added images and coding for the following special days: February 22 (Washington's birthday) and March 16 (Madison's birthday). Cleaned up career-related links and added some on the Careers Section on the Psychology and Counseling Links Page and included a link there as a feature on the home page. Updated content, links and layout on About the Beacon Deacon page.
- April 2009: Enhanced the search feature on the home page to be compatible across more browsers and platforms and to display results from sub-sites howzyerteeth.beacondeacon.com/ and http://family.beacondeacon.com/. Also corrected coding that was causing an encoding error in Firefox in conjunction with the customized search. Also removed old AOL hacks and IE page exit transitions from various pages on the site. Added capability to track when Easter occurs for use with the date feature in the upper right hand corner of the home page. Further, added special days: April 20 to remember the Columbine Tragedy (April 20, 1999) and acknowledge both April 22 for Earth Day and the first Thursday in May as the National Day of Prayer.
- May 2009: Fixed various broken links due to restructuring of site and sister sites.
- June 2009: Added June 4 as a special day to remember Tiananmen Square in preparation for the 20th anniversary of the protests. Added June 12 to remember Anne Frank. Also added February 21 and July 3 as special days in memory of my grandparents. Added annual "markers" to the News & Features section on the home page to mark the end of a year. Placed navigational icons and search at the top of pages to make consistent navigation throughout the site. Utilized images to follow navigational theme on sub-pages. Created a Calendar Page to show all the special days recognized on the Home Page of this site. Added June 19 to commemorate Garfield's debut in comics.
- September 2009: Improved navigational layout at the top of page to prevent overflow and prevent elements from being on top of one another. Also added alerts control to the UNO! game on and other enhancements to a sister site Howz Yer Teeth?!. Added the following special days: February 29 (Leap Year), March 2 (Dr. Seuss), March 3 (Alexander Graham Bell), March 6 (Michelangelo), April 23 (St. George's Day), June 17 (M.C. Escher), and July 29 (NASA).
- October 2009: Revamped the sister site Howz Yer Teeth?! with better layout and a soundboard. Added to the news and features on the home page and added to the singleness page. Wrote Saved - faith or works?, placed it in the Ichthus Library: Theology, and added a link to it on the features of the home page. Added a timed release function for news and features items on the home page.
- November 2009: Made further additions to the Soundboard of the sister site Howz Yer Teeth?!. Added special day November 9 (Fall of the Berlin Wall) to the home page of this site. Added to the news and features on the home page, including the personal work For Sale! Added to the singleness page. Wrote Saved - faith or works?, placed it in the Ichthus Library: Theology, and added a link to it on the features of the home page. Added to the Psychology and Counseling: Careers Section and to the Assessments, Testing, and Measurement Section. Revisited my article Calvin and Arminius: Predestination and Free Will again and made changes.
- December 2009: Improved the timed release function and added articles for news and features on the home page. Added to the Psychology & Counseling Page. Added to the sister site Howz Yer Teeth?!, most notably the addition of a Batman site.
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2010
- January 2010: Added a new sub-site Darth Mult, a themed multiplication game, to the sister site Howz Yer Teeth?! and added items to the Batman site and Soundboard on Howz Yer Teeth?!. Also began load optimization tweaks and added to News & Features on the Beacon Deacon Home Page. Added a gallery of bookmarks, which helped me memorize Scripture as a child.
- February 2010: Made a correction on top navigation of the site for the Portal link. Made additions to the Careers section of the Psychology & Counseling page. Added to the Batman site and Soundboard of the sister site Howz Yer Teeth?!. Began cleaning up old links throughout the site. Also
restored old photographs to Beacon Deacon's Band Land. Added to News & Features on the Beacon Deacon Home Page. Corrected the Cheat Codes for Dark Forces II Jedi Knight and made modifications on the home page of the sister site Howz Yer Teeth?!, namely the additions of a Transformers Site and a Fun Quotes page.
- March 2010: Finished cleaning up old links throughout the site. Added to the index of the sister site Howz Yer Teeth?!
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Thank you Lord for Your faithfulness!