The first two fathers I’ll have to mention only by example, because I don’t have permission from them to use their names and/or photos in this article, and I don’t want to disrespect their privacy.

One of these men, let’s call him Corbett, is the father of a very good friend of mine from my high school days. All Corbett’s children are grown and gone, and most of them have children of their own, but I remember how involved and active Corbett was in the lives of my good friend and her sister. I would visit or spend the night with my friend, and Corbett would interact with us, talk with us and share life lessons with us. It helped that he was a teacher, because Corbett could spend quality time with his girls, and he definitely did just that. Corbett married and had other children, but before there was another woman in his life, his two daughters from a previous relationship were his priorities.

Let me just finish my story of Corbett with this… We were out of high school and college before I even knew my good friend’s mother was actually alive and lived near us. For many years, I was under the impression that Corbett was so devoted to his girls because their birth mother had died. It was a great shock to find out that she wasn’t, and it caused me to have even more respect for Corbett.

The second man I want to tell you about, let’s call him Maximus, I met through an online dating service. We actually hit it off, but the relationship didn’t go anywhere because he worked crazy hours. Plus, get this, Maximus was raising four children, all under the age of ten, on his own. Maximus’ oldest is a boy, then there are twin girls and the youngest is another son. According to Maximus, his wife just decided that she didn’t want to be a mother anymore, and she walked out of their lives forever. Maximus told me he had no idea where she was, and he and the children hadn’t heard from her since his youngest was still in diapers. She walked out when the oldest son was about four.

Maximus is not only devoted to his own children, he made a decision not to allow his situation to interfere with the time he gave to other children. When his [I-guess-she's-now] ex wife walked out, he was coaching two youth basketball teams, and he continued to do so. He told me he would put all four on his children in their car seats, strap them into the minivan and take them all to the basketball practices and games with him.

Can you imagine having four children in car seats at the same time? Whew!

Maximus’ mother and sister live in the area, but the children live with Maximus full-time, even though his mother and sister help out. He told me that his sister wanted to take the girls to live with her, but he said it was out of the question for him. Maximus reasoned that his girls had already been abandoned by their mother. How would they feel to know he kept his sons but sent them away to live with an aunt? He told me he wants all his children with him.

Maximus does his daughters’ hair, helps all the children with their homework, and he is actively involved in what’s going on in their lives. I asked him if he ever wishes his life was different. He told me life without his children wasn’t a life worth living. I have nothing but respect for this man doing it mostly on his own.

Lastly, there’s my brother, Tyrone Ryncarz, whom I mention here by first and last name, because he gave me permission to gush about him to y’all.

We have different last names, because Tyrone didn’t become my brother until he was in high school and he came to live with my parents. By this time, I was out of the house and in college. Tyrone was friends and played sports (baseball, football and wrestling) with my little brother, and my daddy coached their football team.

Tyrone is the custodial parent of my nephew, Shawn. Although Shawn’s mother is involved in his life, my brother, Tyrone, provides Shawn’s primary care on a daily basis. Tyrone cooks for Shawn, buys the majority of Shawn’s clothes and toys, and it’s Tyrone who helps with the homework most nights and stays up with Shawn when he’s sick. It is Tyrone that gets Shawn to and from school and all Shawn’s other activities.

Tyrone’s mother was pretty much his sole source of support until he came to live with our family. Tyrone’s father was around but absent, which is why when Tyrone’s mother needed help my parents stepped in and took over the responsibility of making sure Tyrone had the things that parents provide their children.

I mention the fact that Tyrone’s birth father wasn’t around, because I want you to understand that Tyrone made a choice not to be an absentee father who sends a child support check when Tyrone and his ex-wife got divorced. He put on his big-boy boxers and became the daddy that his father wasn’t.

I love my brother and my nephew, and I’m glad God brought them into our family.

Let me conclude by saying that it is true that there are many fathers who aren’t involved in their children’s lives, but let’s not forget that there are many mothers who are equally culpable for shirking their parental responsibilities.

I find it irksome that African-American men seem to get a disproportionate amount of the bad rap for abandoning their children.

Just FYI, all three of the men I mention in this article are African-American fathers, so don’t lump them into that category of dead-beat dads when you’re generalizing.

So…

Happy Mother’s Day, Tyrone, and all the other fathers who are holding it down when the mothers of their children aren’t around.

Students and teachers can purchase Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 for less than $150: bit.ly/aChcoe #examiner

— Faydra Deon (@faydra_deon) May 2, 2013

In reply to it, @dioninfinite tweeted me the following:

@faydra_deon U can also get adobe cloud access to the entire suite for like $20 month… Prices have dropped

— Dion Baker (@dioninfinite) May 2, 2013

In reply to @dioninfinite, I tweeted him the following:

.@dioninfinite Right. That’s the other article I wrote back on 10 July 2012: examiner.com/article/consid…

— Faydra Deon (@faydra_deon) May 2, 2013

Then @dioninfinite asked me the following:

@faydra_deon Good article! Do you think easier access to these design tools undermines the ability to earn a living in the design industry?

— Dion Baker (@dioninfinite) May 2, 2013

To his question, I replied:

.@dioninfinite Not at all. Access to the tools does not equal proficiency. I teach students to use the Adobe products, but they’ll still…

— Faydra Deon (@faydra_deon) May 2, 2013

.@dioninfinite come to me weeks after the classes are over and hire me to use the tools to do their website design/development. What they…

— Faydra Deon (@faydra_deon) May 2, 2013

.@dioninfinite realize is that it takes years of working with the applications to actually do anything worthwhile with them.

— Faydra Deon (@faydra_deon) May 2, 2013

Oh, no! I’ve forgotten how to read physical books.

So here’s what happened…

I’ve been reading almost exclusively from my Kindle DX since I got it back in 2010, and my preferred place to read is in my bed each night before I go to sleep. The Kindle is flat and you click a button to turn the pages. With it’s cover, I can set it up in an upside-down “V” and read while I’m lying on my side.

Not so with a physical book.

I’ve been physical wrestling with The Hidden Life of Otto Frank for the last four days. I just can’t seem to find a comfortable position for lying down and reading this physical book, even though the content of the book is very interesting to me.

I can lie on my side and read one page, but when I have to move over to the second page I either have to switch sides or try to hold the book up so I can see the other page.

Switching sides is out of the question, since I read so quickly that I’ll be flip-flopping from side to side every two minutes, and holding the book up causes a cramp in my thumb.

Sigh.

I don’t know. I plan to read the book in its entirety, but I don’t think we’ll be friends when I’m done.

I can’t wait to get back to my Kindle.

Since then, I’ve graduated from an application called FirstPage to Microsoft FrontPage to Macromedia Dreamweaver to Adobe Dreamweaver to WordPress/JOOMLA!/Drupal to using Dreamweaver and WordPress/JOOMLA!/Drupal together as a web designer/developer.

Then there’s all the other coding, besides HTML,  I’ve learned: XHTML, HTML5, CSS 1/2/3, XML, JavaScript, AJAX, jQuery, PHP, SQL, XML; not to mention OOP, the DOM, Web Services and so on.

Let’s not forget Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and Fireworks. I use those, too.

Since I got out of the Army in 2006, I’ve trained other people, on a corporate level, to use web design/development applications and coding languages. I’m also an instructor at a community college where I teach Dreamweaver, WordPress and Illustrator classes, along with Grammar classes. You can’t have great web content without great grammar.

I teach what I do, and I do what I teach.

I have a WordPress column.

I have a Dreamweaver column.

I even did a radio show on WordPress for awhile. (Hm. I kind of miss this, too. )

Anyway…

I’ve had more than one person contact me because their “web designer” wasn’t able to do simple things like change their banner image or change the link color or change the font size.

Really? Wow.

Almost always, they’re contacting me about WordPress sites.

I had this to say to a person who contacted me through Facebook:

It’s a developer you need to customize this WordPress theme. The person who is working on your site didn’t “design” it. He/she purchased a design already created. Redesigns are done by developers. Designs are done by graphic designers. Designers/developers do both.

It annoys me when I see people advertising themselves as web designers/developers who can’t do anything but activate a WordPress theme.

I’d venture to say the proliferation of these so-called web designers with no real skills are a direct result of social media.

One minute a person in my Twitter timeline is a music agent. The next minute that same person is offering WordPress packages for $250!

And…

People who don’t know any better are jumping on that, because they think it’s a great deal.

They pay their new “web designer” $250, and their “web designer” finds a free WordPress theme, changes the title text and says, “Hey, your site’s done. I hope you like it!”

Being none-the-wiser, the client looks at the site, and they’re just so glad to finally have a web presence, they’re like, “This is so great. Thank you!”

Really? Wow.

You just paid $250 for something you could have done yourself by going to YouTube and watching a few WordPress for Beginners videos.

Anyway…

A web designer/developer doesn’t shun WordPress or WordPress themes.

He/she just knows how to customize WordPress themes. If you want your site set up on WordPress, you need a developer more than you need a designer. WordPress themes are already designed.

Check out these sites:

This is what the WordPress theme looked like before:

This is what I made it look like after I redesigned it:

I used the same theme on these three sites: Thesis:

This is what Thesis looks like on a fresh install:

Anyway…

Make sure you know what you’re getting when you hire a web designer/developer. Are you hiring someone who actually designs and/or develops, or are you hiring someone who activates themes?

Quick Tips:

• Ask a potential web designer/developer the steps he/she plans to use to create your site.
  • If he/she mentions Wix or VistaPrint or some other plug-and-play site…RUN!
  • If he/she is vague about his/her process…RUN!
  • If he/she takes too long to reply to your email…RUN!

You can see my complete portfolio at http://hyper-linx.com.

I got a chance to talk about what I do, why I do it and what inspires me to do it. I also talk about the future of publishing.

Let me know what you think of it.

I would also assert that we get older, and we have so many more choices, that we think we have to give up simple pleasures because we’re supposed to be thinking more complex thoughts.

Over the past several years I’ve been trying to get back to the simple pleasures I used to enjoy.

In 2010, I reconnected with reading almost every, single day for pleasure. Of course, it helped that in 2010 I got my Kindle DX, but I have definitely gotten the total worth from it by using it to do something I used to love, love, love doing when I was growing up: reading.

Like many folks, I went off to college and was forced to read things that I didn’t necessarily want to read. Then I got a job, and the same thing applied there, so reading for pleasure got pushed to the wayside.

Now… no matter what I have going on, I take time out to read something that has nothing to do with school or work. Some nights, it’s just two or three pages, but I do it if I’m not asleep by the time my head hits the pillow.

I’ve also rediscovered a simple turkey and cheese sandwich, chips and apple slices for lunch.

Why’d I give that up for so many years?

You know why? As I got older, there were all these studies and reports about what to eat and what not to eat. Everything is bad for you according to this report. Nothing is bad for you according to that report. I was trying to keep up with it all, and it got to the point that trying to figure out what to eat just became another job.

So what did I do?

I started fretting over every, little edible thing and found myself not being able to consume enough calories of enough good foods to be healthy. You know, there are fat people, like me, who don’t eat a lot of cookies, cakes and pies, but we’re still fat, because our bodies are always in starvation mode.

When the body is in starvation mode, it will hold onto whatever calories you feed it, because it doesn’t know when it’s going to get its next round of nourishment. Where does the body store the calories it doesn’t use? In fat cells.

Don’t get me wrong. There are overweight people who eat far too many cookies, cakes and pies, but there are many facets to weight gain, not just overeating.

Something else I gave up as I got older was daily exercise. I used to play basketball, run track, play softball, and I was in the marching band! I got to college, and I decided I’d had enough of sweating my hair out (I had some back then) and being too tired to do my homework, so I stopped participating in all sports.

So… add together the fact that I don’t consume enough calories to keep my body out of starvation mode and the fact that I’ve been sedentary since I got out of the military in 2006, and you have big, ol’ fluffy me.

However, I’ve rediscovered walking, and I’m learning yoga. These are two simple, yet effective, ways for me to get moving, and I’ve also rediscovered simple breakfasts, lunches and dinners. Forget all the hard-to-prepare recipes and buying foods I don’t normally eat on a regular basis. I mean, whole countries subsist on pasta, rice and/or potatoes as the staple in their diets. As long as I moderate the sauces, sugar, butter, salt, etc., why should I  not enjoy these foods, especially since I include lots of fruits and vegetables in my meals, don’t drink sodas or keep many snack foods around the house?

My most recent rediscovery is over-the-calf socks, and I’m wondering whatever made me give them up. They are so comfortable!

Why am I driving my electric bill through the roof with a space heater when I can just put on some thick and practical, over-the-calf socks and keep it moving?! I don’t need to invest in leg warmers, thermal underwear, trendy house shoes, Swankets, Slankets or Snuggies. These inexpensive socks have given me more warmth and comfort than anything else I’ve tried in a long time.

I’ve also taken to wearing an old-fashioned sweater and a skullie when the rest of my body gets cold, because it’s less expensive to bundle up than the overheat the house. Did you know about 85% of your body heat escapes through your head? I learned that from a science teacher when I was in ninth grade. It’s something else we simply overlook when we’re trying to get warm. Put on a freakin’ hat, you!

I should probably learn how to knit. Okay, I’ll stop.

Anyway…

Simple pleasures lower your stress.

Like I said, I could be totally wrong, but that’s my perspective, and I’m sticking to it.

Just once, if someone said, “Please view my Facebook page? If you like it, consider clicking “Like,” I might consider doing it, but…

— Faydra Deon (@faydra_deon) August 13, 2012

when I get these requests that say, “Go to Facebook and “like” my page,” I totally ignore them without ever visiting those pages.

— Faydra Deon (@faydra_deon) August 13, 2012

There’s very little integrity in the “Like” system, as far as I’m concerned, because people don’t care if you actually like what’s there.

— Faydra Deon (@faydra_deon) August 13, 2012

They just want you to click the button. I won’t even get started on the fact that you can buy “likes” and barter for “likes.”

— Faydra Deon (@faydra_deon) August 13, 2012

@faydra_deon Ditto. Does anyone actually obey?

— Holly Worton (@hollyworton) August 13, 2012

.@hollyworton I would say people who don’t realize their friendship is being abused actually go and click “Like.”

— Faydra Deon (@faydra_deon) August 13, 2012

@faydra_deon It would be easier to buy likes than to irritate potential likers.

— Holly Worton (@hollyworton) August 13, 2012

@faydra_deon The one that annoys me is when people you don’t know on twitter tell you to retweet them. Really grinds my gears.

— Atane Ofiaja (@atane) August 13, 2012

.@atane Yes! That seems to be cropping up more, too: People requesting you retweet their content blindly or people who tweet you with…

— Faydra Deon (@faydra_deon) August 13, 2012

.@atane “Hey, I’ve been retweeting a lot of your stuff. Could you retweet my stuff?” Like I asked them for retweets. Let’s make a deal…

— Faydra Deon (@faydra_deon) August 13, 2012

.@atane Only retweet my updates if you find value in them and think others may also, and I’ll do the same for you. We won’t beg each other.

— Faydra Deon (@faydra_deon) August 13, 2012

(the above tweet actually contains a typo that I corrected when I embedded the tweet on my site; apologies for the typo)

Let’s make a deal: I won’t ever ask you to blindly “like” anything I have on the web, and you will return the favor. How does that sound?

— Faydra Deon (@faydra_deon) August 13, 2012

@faydra_deon That sounds great

— TEDDY A JONES (@TeddyAJones) August 13, 2012

@faydra_deon If I’m in touch with the person on another site and I like them, then I’m happy to connect elsewhere. But not out of the blue.

— Holly Worton (@hollyworton) August 13, 2012

@faydra_deon @hollyworton I’m happy to go to a page, have a look and click like

— Diana Harrison (@DMHarrison123) August 13, 2012

RT @dmharrison123: @faydra_deon @hollyworton I’m happy to go to a page, have a look and click like <– If that works for you, great.

— Faydra Deon (@faydra_deon) August 13, 2012

RT @dmharrison123: @faydra_deon @hollyworton I’m happy to go to a page, have a look and click like <– It doesn’t work for me.

— Faydra Deon (@faydra_deon) August 13, 2012

@faydra_deon I wonder if these people also lack social grace and etiquette in real life. Do they demand things from people on the street?

— Atane Ofiaja (@atane) August 13, 2012

Another reason I don’t click “like” on ANYTHING is because I’m being tracked enough on the web without allowing Facebook to track me more.

— Faydra Deon (@faydra_deon) August 13, 2012

The “like” system is equivalent to using those grocery store club cards. Everything you “like” is being indexed to “sell” you other stuff.

— Faydra Deon (@faydra_deon) August 13, 2012

It’s one of the same reasons I don’t use my Facebook login to log into other sites. Why would I want Facebook knowing what I buy online?

— Faydra Deon (@faydra_deon) August 13, 2012

(the above tweet actually contains a typo that I corrected when I embedded the tweet on my site; apologies for the typo)

It doesn’t benefit me at all to allow Facebook into that part of my life. They get all the benefit, and I get all the targeted ads.

— Faydra Deon (@faydra_deon) August 13, 2012

Too many people aren’t thinking about why they’re doing this or that online. They’re just thinking about ease of use. Don’t be sheep!

— Faydra Deon (@faydra_deon) August 13, 2012

@faydra_deonLOL… girl you are on a roll with your Facebookisms… I love it!Happy Monday…

— Stephanie C. Harper(@SpeakStephanie) August 13, 2012

.@speakstephanie Happy Monday to you, too, sis. I think many folks wish I would go back to autotweets right about now. Haha.

— Faydra Deon (@faydra_deon) August 13, 2012

@faydra_deon Yes! I’m with you on that rant. I don’t “like” or use FB to login anywhere else either. #privacyissues

— Chela (@ChelaBK) August 13, 2012

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Book description from Amazon: The Last Train to Dachau is based on the real life plight of the Miller family during World War II. With the invasion of Poland by the Germans, the story follows the family and their experiences of: the occupation, hunger, cold, and the terror in their home town. This family of five was Polish Catholic, but had a German-like surname. This situation placed them between the Germans, who wanted them to sign a loyalty declaration, which they refused, and the community which assumed that they had. The story tells of the horrors and obstacles that they faced and had to overcome to stay together and live. Emilia, Alicia and Leszek are children that spend most of their youth surviving both the physical and emotional stresses of war. Wladyslawa, the mother, is a worker in a Red Cross shelter during the day, but often had to travel at night to find black market food for her family. Wiktor, the father, was conscripted to a labor train after the surrender of Warsaw. He worked under threat of great harm to his family while forced to travel and repair damaged trains and tracks across Poland and Germany. His travels and experiences on a recovery and repair crew gave him an avenue to stay alive while still resisting his oppressors.The intensity of the story increases as the Millers face the brutality of their captors who desperately try to accomplish their “final solution” for all Poles in the closing days of the war. The reader will find it hard to put the book down as the Millers face their fate.

My book review system – 5 points per category:

• Book cover – 5 points
• Cohesive storyline – 5 points
• Spelling/Grammar/Punctuation (SGP) – 2 points – lots of errors
• Character development – 5 points
• Credibility – 5 points

22/5 = 4.4

4-star rating

View all my reviews

Learn more about my book review system.

Before I go to bed, even if it’s 3a, I will take the time to read from my Kindle DX, even if it’s only 10 paragraphs before I find myself dozing off.

Once I read all these books, I really want to do reviews on them, to share some good (and not-so-good) reads with others.

However, doing a review like I did for, say, Satan’s Sister by Star Jones, take a lot of time and energy for me.

So…

I’ve been thinking long and hard about a way to do book reviews that gives you more than just a star rating but it doesn’t take me hours to write.

And…

Today, I finally came up with a system that I’m going to implement.

Now…

Keep in mind that this is my system. There may be others systems, but this one is mine. I’m not asking you to like or use my system. If you like my system, use it. If you don’t like my system, don’t use it.

Now for the system…

My system has five categories:

• Book cover
• Cohesive storyline
• Spelling/Grammar/Punctuation (SGP)
• Character development
• Credibility

I each of these categories, the book will be given five points. Then the points will be averaged to make up the star rating.

For example…

A book I recently reviewed on Goodreads is Where Did We Go Wrong? by Monica Mathis-Stowe. This is what my original 4-star review said:

If you love drama, you’ll love this book. I’m not into drama at all so I cringed a lot while reading this book, but I have to put my personal preferences aside to give the book the rating it deserves. I took away one star for some editing issues and overuse of name brand items (e.g, Gucci, Prada, etc.) I’m looking forward to reading the sequel.

With my new system, this is what the review for the same book would look like:

Where Did We Go Wrong? by Monica Mathis-Stowe

Author’s summary: In this newly released romantic suspense novel, best friends Gabby, Maxine and Joy protect each other at all costs, even if it means keeping secrets that turn their lives upside down. Gabby has no boundaries when it comes to getting what she wants. She pulls out every trick in the book to keep her daughter’s married father out of their lives but keep his money in her bank account, while Maxine lives for her family but when her husband’s excessive spending lands them in more debt than they can handle, the stress takes a toll on their perfect marriage. After Joy’s loyalty to her controlling mother causes her to lose the only man she’s ever loved, she marries a man she barely knows. When the wedding is over, she quickly realizes she made the biggest mistake of her life and it puts everybody she loves in danger. Unfortunately, someone will have to pay the ultimate price with their life.

• Book cover – 5 points
• Cohesive storyline – 5 points
• Spelling/Grammar/Punctuation (SGP) – 4 points – misspelled words, missing punctuation
• Character development – 5 points
• Credibility -3 points – Gabby is just unbelievable and extremely disgusting; before speaking with the author I was under the impression that the women were older, mainly because of the men in their lives; I was surprised to learn that the author was writing about women in their late 20s; that didn’t come across to me in the story, since their partners seemed to be so well-established in their professions

This is my new system. I like it, and it will allow me to rate many of the books I’ve already read while leaving me time to continue to read more and share more. It also keeps me from giving away too much about the authors’ books before others get a chance to read them.