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I suspect it
was the product of a midlife crisis. I’d been distracted. I’d wasted a
lot of time wondering what it would be like to have soft smooth hands
and clean clothes. I kept dreaming of taking my horse to Indio for the
winter. Doesn’t that sound like a midlife crisis to you? Anyway, one day
I was out watching goats on the hill, admiring the finest crop of babies
I have ever seen, and really wishing I was in Indio instead. The thought
occurred to me that I had doubts about this vocation. The thought
occurred to me that I might want to kick over the traces, shuck the
goats, and buy a bottle of expensive hand cream. The thought occurred to
me that I should pray to the Lord for guidance, for a sign, for a fleece
(make mine Angora, please), if you will. So I did.
“Lord,” I
asked, “In or out, please give me some direction for this goat
enterprise”. The Lord does not mess around. I had my answer within five
minutes. It came via phone call. Apparently I was in.
“What you need” said the very cool, very slick salesman at the other end
of the line “is a website. It’s easy. It’s profitable. It’s painless. I
can help you.”
Egads! It sure didn’t sound like the voice of God. It sounded rather
like the opposite (And I can say that here, Luke, because you
don’t ever read my stuff!). Well, God uses all sorts of people and
events to accomplish His purposes, whatever they happen to be. I
nibbled. “Whaddaya want?”
“Tell me your favorite color,” crooned Cool Hand Luke. “Send me a few
photos, a logo, and your contact info; in about a week you’ll have a
site I guarantee you’ll love or you don’t pay a thing.”
Right, thank you, I’ll get back to you. Now, even though I’ve never
owned one, I know all about the care and feeding of websites. You
don’t just get one, bring it home, and leave it sitting there in
cyberspace. Those things have to be maintained, like hot tubs or goat
flocks. The chief instrument of website maintenance is the digital
camera, which is a tool of Satan if there ever was one. A good effective
site is updated on a monthly basis, minimally, with new and interesting
goat photos. It is common knowledge that to get one good goat photo you
have to take 4000 bad goat photos. A website requires slightly more than
one good goat photo, say, about 44 more. I have spent years following
goats around with a camera, and my entire collection of good goat photos
numbers 37.
It gets worse. A website is all about advertising. It’s hype. You have
to sell yourself. It’s goat prostitution, presented as art. I have
plenty to say about living with goats, but prefer to let my animals
speak for themselves. I am profoundly uncomfortable telling you that my
goats are the finest on the planet, even though they are (the
proof is in the freezer!).
I wandered back into the house, and e-mailed Mr. Slick Man my 37 good
goat photos before I regained my right mind. Do you have any idea how
long it takes to send 37 photos when your internet server is powered by
a hamster on a little wheel? I sat back and chewed my nails to the
quick. No doubt about it- I was no longer obsessing about hand cream or
Indio. This website thing seemed an answer to my prayers. I
focused on the goats, put fresh batteries in my demonic camera, and
looked for subjects that were not too muddy, too hairy, or too fast to
be photographed. Then I got the first proof page. Hmmmm: The background
color was good, but I couldn’t tell if I was selling goats or aerospace
technology. I sighed heavily and fired off a little bio to WebMan,
trying to give him a feel for who he was dealing with. Unfortunately, as
my sense of humor about the situation waned, his waxed abundant. The
next thing he sent me looked like an ad for a Victorian-style African
safari lodge for goats. I banged my head against the wall for a while,
and sent off an e-plea for mercy. Things started looking better later
that evening, when I stuck my head out the window to see my barn burning
to the ground. “Oh goody gumdrops!” I thought to myself, “A real
sign from God. Now I don’t have to do a website and I am out
of the goat business!”
While the barn fire actually brought more blessing than woe, it did not
put me out of the goat business, and I found myself more deeply enmeshed
in this dreadful web. Slick Mr. Luke sent me an absolutely perfect page;
I couldn’t have done it better myself. Now I was well and truly
committed. I memorized the instruction manual for that damned camera,
and stocked up on lithium batteries. I bought a copy of Building
Websites for Dummies, and carefully studied every goat site on the
entire internet. I confirmed the suspicion that feeding and caring for a
website requires far more time and effort than 200 goats. Can you
believe it took three days to write a three paragraph introduction for
the front page? I had to give up and let my 12 year old write the buck
captions. Can somebody explain to me how to type out a pedigree? I’m
just exhausted! And I get to do it again next month.
“But,” you ask, “Didn’t you hire this person to do all that for you?”
The problem, you see, is that designers do not really design your site;
They construct it according to your design. You are the only one
responsible for what you get. This brings in a whole new realm of
communication conundrums. How do you describe graphic concepts in
written form? If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many thousands
of words does it take to tell you what to do with this picture? There
are technical gaps to be bridged. Can you move that little clicky-thingy
to the bottom and put a popper-upper on my whatchama-doozy? There are
miracles to be performed. Can you tell me how to make this camera take
pictures? There are personality differences to be ironed out. Are you
getting paid enough to put up with me? None of it has anything
to do with goats. In spite of yourself, you get tangled up in a
relationship with this faceless stranger at the other end of your
e-mail. I suggest you learn the names and birthdays of their pet cats,
or regularly ask after the health of their grandmother. Treat them
gently- your business life is in their hands.
I hope this will be a profitable little primer to you about websites,
web techs, and slick salesmen; but most of all, be careful what you pray
for. The Lord always answers prayer, and He does not mess around.
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