Postpostmodern » Regarding Jason T Johnson

Since the content of this site is built around things that interest me, I should tell you a little bit about myself.

My name is Jason T. Johnson. I’ve always included the ‘T’ as an attempt to distinguish my self from all the other Jason Johnsons. Postpostmodern is my alias on most of the web. The ‘about’ sidebar to the right (click on the question mark atop the sidebar) explains the origin of the term.

I live in middle Tennessee with my wife and cat. I work out of several offices. The ‘main office’ is in the northwest corner of my house. The ‘downtown office’ is a coffee shop about 2 miles from my house. Most of the other offices are coffee shops and/or cafés.

I have a fine arts background with a degree in painting. After college, my career path began as a graphic designer, which evolved into web design, which mutated into web development. These days most of what I do is within the realm of programming and UI design for web sites and web applications.

The places at which I feel most at home:

These are the facets of the web world where I spend most of my time:

Semantic HTML (sadly, most people don’t realize that that phrase is redundant)
The finer points of CSS layout and styling
Usability
Most things relating to Ruby on Rails
jQuery
PHP
MySQL

Occasionally, I also tinker with:

Flash and ActionScript
Web server administration (purely out of necessity)
Shell scripting

Web development is my trade, not my identity.

Besides web stuff, I have a long list of things I dig. Some of those things are:

Art: Art kind of goes without saying, since I mentioned that my degree is in painting. I haven’t had time to paint in the past few years, but I intend on getting back into my studio one of these days.
Music: I’ve also been known to write a few songs. I was the front man for Green Rode Shotgun for several years. I still sit around and pick on the old guitar and sing a few tunes now and again.
Backpacking: Though I only get a chance to do it once or twice a year, backpacking (hiking/camping/etc.) is very dear to me. I grew up in the woods. My soul gets all knotted up and confused when I sit in front of a computer for long periods of time. Being out in nature sets my shit straight.
Fly Fishing: I’m no expert at fly fishing, but I sure do love it. I used to fly fish from a canoe with my dad when I was young.
Sailing: Sailing is another thing I fell in love with during my childhood. And possibly more than sailing itself, I fell in love with beautifully designed sailboats. My family spent our weekends on a 28 foot cat ketch. I lived on that boat for a while during college. Some of my fondest memories are of weathering summer storms on the lake in the cabin of that boat – burning oil lamps, drinking rum, and playing my guitar.
Architecture & Furniture Design: I almost went to school for furniture design. Still might someday.
Teaching: I spent 6 years as an art instructor at Tennessee Technological University. It was a fascinating, challenging, and rewarding experience. If the right opportunity came along, I could easily spend the rest of my life teaching.
Bicycling: I bought a bike recently. I’ve been spending quite a bit of time riding around. I think I’d like to try some touring.