Fishes Interview #6 with Website designer Arlen, creator and designer of the online Sculpture Park of E.T. Wickham. This site is dedicated to the preservation of Folk Artist, E. T. Wickham's stone statues.

about the father's business - Fishes Interviews
Candid interviews with web site builders & designers "A series of interviews with online shop owners, artists, musicians and business owners, all are celebrities in my book. Level of web design, W3C Validation or CSS and HTML expertise is not as important as their hopes, dreams, struggles and accomplishments. "

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Welcome to the Fishes Candid Interviews | design by atfb, web design and custom graphics, photograph restoration, photograph enhancement and logo creation.

Big fishes and little fishes

QUESTION: I hope by now you are familiar with the fish image and the history, if you would identify yourself with a fish in the image and tell us why you did so.

Well, as relates to web development, if you had asked me that a year ago I would have said the fish out of water. Now I would say I'm the fish in the water, but the one not quite swimming in a straight line!

QUESTION: If you don't mind, what do you do in "real life".

I recently retired from working for an international electronics company as a software engineer. I still have some business activities during the day but I also have time to devote to some personal projects.

QUESTION: What site domains or sub domains constitute your site(s)? Are these personal site (s) or business site (s)? please include links. You may if you wish also provide a few smallish screen shots if you like.

wickhamstonepark sunsetlandscape

I have two websites. WickhamStonePark.com is a personal site about the concrete sculptures of my Grandfather. The other, SunsetLS.com is a business site for my son-in-law's landscaping business.

QUESTION: Where are you located? You don't have to provide me with details, just a overview, like country.

My wife and I live in the Sierra foothills of Northern California. Its quite peaceful here, lots of nearby mountain lakes and streams but it does get HOT here in the summer. Much like Central Texas I imagine. Winters are mild though, hardly ever below freezing.

QUESTION: How did you settle on your domain name (s)?

My Grandfather on occasion would refer to his works as Wickham Stone Park. Everyone else just referred to them as "the statues" so his name never really stuck but I thought I'd make use of it for the domain name. The other domain name was obvious. It was the name of the business.

QUESTION: What prompted you to build a web site (s)?

I knew the family had quite a few pictures of the statues back in the 60s so I was motivated to use these pictures to recreate the environment as it was in its heyday. Also I wanted to make more of the local people aware of the condition of the statues, with hopes more could be done to preserve them.

QUESTION: What was the "dumbest" question you've ever asked concerning website design or implementation? Feel free to elaborate if you need to.

Well I'm sure I asked more than a few lame questions about horizontal scrolling and picture re sizing on this forum. Unfortunately I guess it is on the record for a while. How long are these forum threads archived anyway? I hope people don't bring-up my questions if they google "horizontal scrolling".

QUESTION: Do you feel your site (s) are finished or do you still have grander goals? Elaboration is expected.

I feel both my websites are basically completed. There is a What's New page on the Wickham site that is updated from time to time but I just feel both are built out.

QUESTION: Arlen what is your biggest source of frustration regarding web building?

Well it was using MS Word to initially create my website pages. I can't believe how bloated the code was and even today I have remnants from Word. This, in spite of the fact that I use DreamWeaver's " get rid of MS Word's extraneous code button". Today the biggest frustration is keeping spammers out of my guest book.

QUESTION: Arlen I know your primary website is the Wickham Stone Park Tour Site. How has your website contributed to the preservation and restoration of the E.T. Wickham Folk Art Park? Have you instituted a Wickham Stone Park Newsletter? If not what is stopping you?

I believe it has increased the local awareness of the condition of the statues. I have a cousin who has moved two of the smaller statues to a protected area on his property. He hopes to clean them up and repair them as best he can. It does not seem to have raised the awareness of the local politicians much however. I have communicated with two of them and there does not seem to be much interest in creating a park at the site of the statues.
As for what more I can do, I have to say that I have moved on to some extent. I live 2500 miles away so my contribution will have to be this website. I will leave it for others to become a catalyst for more action.

QUESTION: How long have you been involved in web development and do you see your self building more web sites in the future?

I have been involved in web building for about a year. At some point I would like to have a personal site that could be setup for more varied themes.

QUESTION: Arlen, what was your most glorious moment as it relates to your web site (s)? And if you can, what was the most disastrous moment?

Interesting question. I think it was when it clicked in my head that I had the Wickham Stone Park website laid out. I had the blueprint. My most disastrous moment was probably attempting to import MS Word html into DreamWeaver. It did not go well. In hindsight it would have been easier to start from scratch in DreamWeaver.

QUESTION: How do you balance your web building time and your life time? Do you feel you balance it well?

I spend a fair amount of time offline with my business and personal interests. Is it too much? Probably. I recently purchased a kayak and this will cut into my online time even more. Seriously, as you can see by my answer, I need to cut back on my online time.

QUESTION: Arlen, what are your dreams and aspirations? They don't have to relate to your website.

Nothing grandiose. I'm sure the same as most people. Be healthy, financially solvent, have interesting work and opportunities to travel. Helping out the family as needed is important to me. Also just exploring the possibilities now that I have more time. Socrates said "the unexamined life is not worth living". I believe that.

QUESTION: What would you say was the most difficult part of building your site (s)? What would you say were the easiest parts? If you have more then one site, which is your favorite? You may include those that you've built for others.

The most difficult part was building a website before I had all the necessary knowledge. Once you understand the process, software programs like DreamWeaver and FrontPage make it easy to build and maintain websites.
My favorite website is WickhamStonePark.com . It was quite an undertaking but I'm happy with the way it turned-out.

QUESTION: How do you feel about following the W3C validation recommendations?

Standards are important and should be followed until diminishing returns are reached.

QUESTION: How much attention do you feel you pay attention to web standards and accessibility issues?

I like to use WYSIWYG editors and I know these may not always produce the most efficient or perfect W3C code. I don't spend a lot of time to change either of these shortcomings.

QUESTION: If you had one bit of advice or a tidbit of knowledge to impart, what would it be?

Don't use MS Word to generate web pages. Also start with a small project to learn the ropes. Then scale-up.

QUESTION: If you could post two links to websites, that you consider to be outstanding sites what would they be? They don't have to be outstanding due to validation, css or web standards just outstanding in that they are interesting, helpful and or contribute to the over all betterment of the web wide world.

The first would be Google. I believe they are doing some amazing things on the web. I just recently used their online spreadsheet. And now they have plans of introducing an online word processor (Writely).
The second website would actually be a class of websites. Personal websites like yours, Jonra's and ,JWJ's, for example, really make the web interesting and worth exploring.

QUESTION: Arlen, is there any question that I cannot ask you? Do you have limits to what you are willing to share? Why?

Of course you have limits when this information is posted to the Internet. Search engines will fine anything that is published on the Net so you really have to be a little circumspect about what you allow to be posted.

QUESTION: I asked another and would like to ask you, some think everyone is born with natural born talent, what is yours?

Well I don't have much in the way of artistic ability. Perhaps I have some talent in coming-up with innovative ways of solving problems. This is probably a question best left to others who are looking-on as its difficult to look at yourself with an unbiased eye.

QUESTION: Are there any questions you would have liked me to ask but I didn't? If so please do elaborate.

No, I think your questions are quite thorough. The questions and my answers probably already strain the attention span of most forum members.

QUESTION: How do you feel about this interview and the process? Do you have any recommendations or suggestions to make?

I believe these interviews are very clever and a harbinger of the way interviews can be conducted in the future. Even now there is the capability with simple web cams to do an interview with anyone on the planet with an Internet connection and basic equipment. Split screen interviews could be done and in conclusion you could say "This is Sharron, web-reporter from designbyatfb, signing-off for now".
What, and subject my accent on the world. Maybe Nichole could do voice over.


Thank yee kindly for participating!
Arlen, Fishes Interview #6