Timeline

Born in Madison, WI at St. Mary’s Hospital

First day of Kindergarten at Huegel Elementary

Moved to Verona, WI (start of 5th grade)

Graduated Verona Area High School

Start work at American Family Insurance (software testing)

Started at University of Wisconsin-Whitewater

Attended my first Graves Mountain Bluegrass Festival

Help found Whitewater United for Peace

Started work at The Brass Rail Saloon (after going to court to get them to approve a bartending license after being initially denied for possession of marijuana prior)

Bought my first car, 2002 Saturn L200 (mostly so I’d have a reliable car for delivering pizzas, miraculously found a company to let me finance it myself: $10,000)

Graduated University of Wisconsin-Whitewater

Started work at American (prepress & print design) (American, or “American TV” as it was originally, closed all 11 locations permanently in 2014 after 60 years)

Peak summer of The Missing String Band (My bluegrass/Americana band. Regular gig at The Grumpy Troll in Mt. Horeb among many others)

Started work at Suttle-Strauss (prepress)

Released album with side project band The Groggers

Started work at Chatman Design (web design)

CSS-Tricks launched

Moved to Portland, OR

Moved to Chicago, IL

Launched Are My Sites Up

Launched Digging Into WordPress (the blog)

Initial publishing of Digging Into WordPress (the book)

Digging Into WordPress (the book) v2

Start working at Wufoo (web design)

Digging Into WordPress (the book) v3

Moved to Tampa, FL

Got my first dog: Digby!

SurveyMonkey acquired Wufoo

Moved to Palo Alto, CA / Sold Saturn / Bought 2011 Toyota Tacoma

Launched ShopTalk Show

Sold Volkswagon Westfalia / Bought Jayco camper trailer

Last day at Wufoo/SurveyMonkey – Trip around the U.S.

Launched CodePen

Launched v10 of CSS-Tricks after a successful Kickstarter

Launched CodePen PRO

Moved to Milwaukee, WI

Went full-time on CodePen with Tim Sabat and Alex Vazquez

Sold Jayco Camper / Entered Land Contract to buy house in Milwaukee

Bought SylvanSport GO Camper Trailer right before first MerleFest (where we made the front page of the paper pickin’ in the campground)

Staffed up a bit at CSS-Tricks hiring part time writers/editors/developers/etc.

Completed land contract / Bought same house in Milwaukee

CodePen receives seed funding from Chris Campbell, Ryan Campbell, and Chris Sabat

CodePen hires first employee (Marie Mosley)

Miranda moves in with me

Completed first major home renovation project: front and backyard landscaping

Published Practical SVG (a book)

Moved to Miami with Miranda “for the winter”

We moved back to Milwaukee

Gettin’ married!

Moved to Bend, Oregon

CodePen gets new office in downtown Bend, sharing with CraftCMS

Me and Miranda’s daughter Ruby is born! (Also bought a 2018 Chevy Tahoe so we had a safe 4WD winter car for Ruby)

Bought a house in Bend

Launched microsites. One for listing conferences. One for serverless.

RIP Digby. Had to put the ol’ girl down. She got bitey even with children.

Broke both arms mountain biking

Traded in the Toyota Tachoma for a three-year lease on a Toyota Tundra.

COVID ruins life (for everyone, for years)

Hit by a van (turned in front of me) while riding my bike. Broke foot and got pretty banged up.

Moved to a new office (St. Claire Building)

Built microsite showcasing coding fonts.

Vaccinated!

Half a million followers on CSS-Tricks

Sold CSS-Tricks to DigitalOcean

Sold Chevy Tahoe / Bought Tesla X

The three-year lease on my Toyota Tundra was up, so traded it in and purchased the new version: 2022 Toyota Tundra Platinum.

Probable death due to meteor apocalypse