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# Van Wilson's Site

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur

## Sitemaps

- [XML Sitemap](http://vanwilson.info/sitemap.xml): Contains all public & indexable URLs for this website.

## Posts

- [Should Our Family Own Only Electric Cars?](http://vanwilson.info/2021/04/should-our-family-own-only-electric-cars/) - Ever since my wife got her electric BMW i3 a couple of years ago, I’ve been jealous of the performance. Electric cars have amazing torque, and this particular model is incredibly fun to drive. I was jealous, but I wasn't quite ready for our family to have only electric cars. Hers can only go about
- [McMullen Creek Flood](http://vanwilson.info/2018/09/mcmullen-creek-flood/) - The bridge over the creek in our neighborhood flooded today, as Hurricane Florence came through town on Sunday, September 16, 2018. On Friday, July, 20, 2012, I shot a video of a flood at Addison Dr. bridge over McMullen Creek, in Charlotte, NC. Shortly after I shot this video, the city did a lot of
- [Example of Functional Programming in Three Web Languages](http://vanwilson.info/2017/09/example-of-functional-programming-in-three-web-languages/) - Functional programming is all the rage in the Javascript community this year, and I’ve been doing a lot of it lately because I’ve been using Redux on my latest project at work. It occurred to me that web developers have had some of the building blocks of functional programming for over two decades. Here are
- [Let's Compare Javascript Testing Frameworks](http://vanwilson.info/2016/08/lets-compare-javascript-testing-frameworks/) - Testing your code is one of the most important things that you can do to make yourself a better coder. That’s not just because testing can prevent you from breaking previously-working code when you make changes (also known as regressions), but more importantly, it forces you to write better code in the first place. We
- [The 12 Days of Git, Day 6: Making a Copy of a Git Repository](http://vanwilson.info/2015/12/the-12-days-of-git-day-6-making-a-copy-of-someone-elses-repository/) - On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… six copies of projects. Yesterday, we learned how to push changes to a remote repository with Git. Today, we’re going to see how to copy remote Git repositories to your local computer. If you are following our song, “The Twelve Days of Git,”
- [The 12 Days of Git: Learn Git over the Holidays](http://vanwilson.info/2015/12/the-12-days-of-git-learn-git-over-the-holidays/) - I thought I'd do something fun for the holidays this year. To help people learn Git, I'm writing a super-simple introduction to Git, one day at a time, over the course of 12 days. If you've done any programming or web development over the last few years, you've at least heard about Git. It has become the
- [Wrangle Wandering Whitespace with Git (?!?)](http://vanwilson.info/2016/05/wrangling-wandering-whitespace-git/) - While I was watching a course on Pluralsight, Advanced Git Tips and Tricks, I came across a feature that I had never heard of before, but well worth knowing. Did you know you can wrangle wandering whitespace with Git? You may have already noticed that Git shows you trailing whitespace when you use the git
- [The 12 Days of Git, Day 10: Merging Different Versions with Git](http://vanwilson.info/2016/01/the-12-days-of-git-day-10-merging-different-versions-with-git/) - On the tenth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… ten easy merges. In the previous lesson, we learned about using remote branches with Git to share branches on remote repos, which makes collaborating with other very easy. Today, we’re going to to learn about merging different versions with Git, so that we can
- [The 12 Days of Git, Day 12: Fixing Mistakes with Git](http://vanwilson.info/2016/01/fixing-mistakes-with-git/) - On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… twelve ways to fix mistakes. In the previous lesson, we learned about stashing changes with Git until you need them so that we could save work in progress while we handled something more pressing. Today, we’re going to learn some ways to fix
- [The 12 Days of Git, Day 11: Stashing Changes with Git until You Need Them](http://vanwilson.info/2016/01/the-12-days-of-git-day-11-stashing-changes-with-git-until-you-need-them/) - On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… eleven rapid changes. In the previous lesson, we learned about merging different versions with Git in order to resolve conflicting sets of changes. Today, we’re going to learn about stashing any changes you are working on, in case something more pressing comes up.
- [The 12 Days of Git, Day 2: Tracking Files with Git](http://vanwilson.info/2015/12/the-12-days-of-git-day-2-tracking-files/) - On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… two files that have been versioned. Okay, we're ready to get into the nitty-gritty of using Git. On our “first day of Git,” in Learn Git over the Holidays, we created a folder for an app called santa-tracker and initialized a Git repository
- [The 12 Days of Git, Day 7: Keeping Your Git Repository Up-To-Date with Others’ Changes](http://vanwilson.info/2015/12/the-12-days-of-git-day-7-keeping-your-git-repository-up-to-date-with-others-changes/) - On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… seven sets of changes. Yesterday, we learned about making a copy of a Git repository by cloning it directly, and by forking it on GitHub. Today, we’re going to learn about keeping Your Git repository up-to-date with others’ changes. If you are following
- [The 12 Days of Git, Day 3: Viewing Git History](http://vanwilson.info/2015/12/the-12-days-of-git-day-3-viewing-git-history/) - On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… three views of history. We are slowly building up our Twelve Days of Git song, and today we are going to learn about viewing Git history. In case you missed the first two verses, here’s the story so far: The 12 Days of
- [The 12 Days of Git, Day 4: Double-checking Changes with Git](http://vanwilson.info/2015/12/the-12-days-of-git-day-4-double-checking-changes-with-git/) - On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… four different lines. Our Twelve Days of Git song is really starting to take shape, and today we’ll cover double-checking changes with Git before you commit them. Here’s what we’ve covered so far: The 12 Days of Git: Learn Git over the Holidays
- [The 12 Days of Git, Day 5: Sharing Changes Remotely with Git](http://vanwilson.info/2015/12/the-12-days-of-git-day-5-sharing-changes-remotely-with-git/) - On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave me… five reasons to sing. Today, we’re going to break free of the bonds of our own computers, and learn about sharing changes remotely with Git. I’ve been showing how to use Git for version control of files by discussing it in terms of the
- [The 12 Days of Git, Day 8: Using Git to Experiment Safely](http://vanwilson.info/2016/01/the-12-days-of-git-day-8-using-git-to-experiment-safely/) - On the eighth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… eight different branches. In the previous lesson, we learned about keeping your Git repository up-to-date with others’ changes by configuring an upstream remote and pulling new changesets from that remote. Today, we’re going to return to our example Santa Tracker repo, and learn
- [The 12 Days of Git, Day 9: Using Remote Branches with Git](http://vanwilson.info/2016/01/the-12-days-of-git-day-9-using-remote-branches-with-git/) - On the ninth day of Christmas my true love gave to me… nine versions a-keeping. In the previous lesson, we learned about using Git to experiment safely by creating new branches and adding commits to a specific branch. Today, we’re going to use the new branch we created in that last lesson to learn about using
- [Update Git on Mac OS to Avoid Security Vulnerability](http://vanwilson.info/2014/12/update-git-mac-os-avoid-security-vulnerability/) - When a friend first forwarded me notice of a security vulnerability in the Github client for Mac and Windows, I thought it didn't affect me, because I only use git on the command line. Then, I saw another article which made it clear that the vulnerability is in the git code itself (not any particular client implementation).
- [Never remove anything from your .gitignore file!](http://vanwilson.info/2015/07/never-remove-anything-from-your-gitignore-file/) - Here is a quick programming story with a simple moral. The moral is: don't try to keep your codebase so lean and clean, that you actually re-introduce a problem you've already solved. In particular, never remove anything from your .gitignore file! You got XML in my Javascript! I recently rolled onto a software project with
- [Fountains on the Greenway](http://vanwilson.info/2015/09/fountains-on-the-greenway/) - Here are some pictures of fountains on the greenway along Little Sugar Creek in Charlotte, NC. I came across these old pictures of fountains around Charlotte while my family was reorganizing our photos. They were taken a few years ago, when my son was not taller than I am, and my daughter still looked like
- [South Mountain State Park, Fall 2014](http://vanwilson.info/2014/10/south-mountain-state-park-in-the-fall/)
- [Panera Bread Treats Their Customers Like (Pavlov's) Dogs](http://vanwilson.info/2014/07/panera-bread-treats-customers-like-pavlovs-dogs/) - A bad experience with Panera Bread's new kiosk ordering makes me feel like one of Pavlov's dogs.
- [Sample ZIP Codes from All 50 States (and more)](http://vanwilson.info/2014/11/sample-zip-codes-50-states/) - I needed sample ZIP codes from all 50 states, so that I could test a website feature I've been working on. There are many sites that allow you to look up a ZIP code by city and state, but I was looking for a quick reference all on one page. I couldn't find one right
- [What Really Matters in a Website](http://vanwilson.info/2014/09/really-matters-website/) - A quote from Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, Inbound Marketing (www.InboundMarketing.com): The reality is that most websites look perfectly fine. The colors are fine, the logo is fine, the pictures are fine, and so on. You personally do not like the look of your website because you look at it so often. Your visitors on the
- [A Van Vacation: History, Science, and Best Kept Secrets](http://vanwilson.info/2013/06/a-van-vacation-history-science-and-best-kept-secrets/) - I've been rather “techy” lately, so this post is about my family's recent vacation, which as my wife, Robin, said was a “Van vacation”. I think that's because it was full of history, science and a lot of best-kept secrets from the southern Outer Banks of North Carolina. We spent a week at Atlantic Beach,
- [South Mountain State Park in Winter](http://vanwilson.info/2014/03/south-mountain-state-park-in-winter/) - My son and I went to South Mountain State Park in the winter for first time in January 2014, and it was a very different experience from our earlier, warm-weather trips.
- [Get on the Bus](http://vanwilson.info/2014/04/get-bus/) - Riding the bus in Charlotte, NC I was lamenting to my family and co-workers that I wished it were easier for me to take the bus to work. I work a few blocks outside of downtown, and I thought I would have to go all the way in on one route and back out
- [Top 10 Reasons I'm in the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies](http://vanwilson.info/2013/08/top-10-reasons-im-in-the-dialectic-and-philanthropic-societies/) - I suddenly noticed that the old T-shirt I was wearing around the house lists “Top Ten Reasons I'm in the Societies”. That's the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. They are so faded now that I can barely read them; so, I thought I would preserve them here for posterity.
- [Our Annual Winter Trip](http://vanwilson.info/2014/01/annual-winter-trip/) - Our family just got back from our annual tubing/skiing trip. Despite Jessie having a stomach bug on the drive up, and Ben and I fighting colds, we continue to be blessed year after year with good weather, and the trip turned out to be fabulous. Jessie can definitely say that she knows how to ski
- [The English of the Web](http://vanwilson.info/2013/07/the-english-of-the-web/) - “PHP gets a bad press, because it has never been an academic language, [Andi Gutmans says]. ‘Even in the early days in 2000, it has always been a pragmatic language, like Visual Basic. It’s known as the English of the Web.’” -Andi Gutmans, CEO of Zend, quoted in an interview for TechWeekEurope. This reminded me
- [Rename a Custom Wordpress Theme](http://vanwilson.info/2013/06/rename-a-custom-wordpress-theme/) - Recently, I found myself in a situation where I needed to change the name of a custom theme for a Wordpress site. I found a lot of information online about how to name a theme, but only if you were just starting a new theme, not changing the name of a theme in place on
- [Best Quote Ever](http://vanwilson.info/2013/01/best-quote-ever/) - From Om Malik (http://gigaom.com/2013/01/09/chasing-netflix-intel-att-verizon-others-lose-their-collective-mind/): "AT&T and Verizon — well, they shouldn’t try to do consumer services because frankly they exist to punish their customers."
- [Daylight Saving Time, why bother?](http://vanwilson.info/2011/11/daylight-saving-time-why-bother/) - Some people put all their energy into having a Tea Party. Some people get so mad they want to Occupy something. Me? I want Daylight Saving Time (DST) to go away and never return. Why do I get so worked up over something that seems so trivial? Well, it's partly a matter of my political
- [The weather outside is frightful... How Christmas music stations ruined Christmas music](http://vanwilson.info/2012/01/the-weather-outside-is-frightful-how-christmas-music-stations-ruined-christmas-music/) - (This post may seem a little belated, but pretend we are still following the Julian calendar and that Christmas comes on January 6th.) Do you know how some radio stations switch over to an all-Christmas music format, sometimes as earlier as Nov. 1? There are two radio stations in my city that do so, although
- [Rotten Tomatoes](http://vanwilson.info/2012/01/rotten-tomatoes/) - I've been catching up on my Science Friday podcasts, and I heard an interview with Barry Estabrook, author of the recently-published Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit. He tell a story of when he was following a tomato truck in rural Florida in the winter, and a tomato fell of the truck, almost cracked his
- [Defense of Marriage, 45 Years Ago](http://vanwilson.info/2012/02/defense-of-marriage-45-years-ago/) - In the upcoming primary elections this spring, North Carolina voters will vote on a proposed amendment to the state constitution. It will be listed as N.C. Amendment 1. The ballot will read: "[ ] FOR [ ] AGAINST Constitutional amendment to provide that marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal
- [Why isn't the series "Junkyard Wars" available on DVD, Hulu, or Netflix?](http://vanwilson.info/2012/05/why-isnt-the-series-junkyard-wars-available-on-dvd-hulu-or-netflix/) - Remember that great BBC series that got ported to The Learning Channel back in the late '90s, "Junkyard Wars"? It was a show that one fan site (Junkyard Wars Online) described as "equal parts gameshow, Mad Max and science lesson in a race to see which team will build the best machine in the allotted
- [A New Favorite Author](http://vanwilson.info/2012/12/a-new-favorite-author/) - I have a new favorite (living) author, John Scalzi. His writing reminds me of John Updike, Douglas Adams, Jerry Pournelle, and an eight-grade class clown, all rolled into one. I just happened to come across a recommendation for his first book, Old Man's War, a little over a year ago, and I enjoyed it immensely.
- [Little Sugar Creek Greenway](http://vanwilson.info/2012/06/little-sugar-creek-greenway/) - Just south of downtown
- [The Great Flood of Charlotte](http://vanwilson.info/2012/07/great-flood-of-charlotte/)
- [Come over to the dark side...](http://vanwilson.info/2011/10/hello-world/) - Why the trite references to The Empire Strikes Back? Because I resisted using WordPress for so long, it seemed... strangely appropriate. After having tried several different pieces of software to make websites easier, both at work and at home, I decided it was time to see why WordPress has so many users. I know Internet

## Pages

- [News-CPT Plugin for Wordpress](http://vanwilson.info/wordpress/plugins/news-cpt-plugin-for-wordpress/) - [Update 22 November 2014: after missing a support question here that went unanswered for way to long, I realized I needed to close comments on this page. Please post all support questions in this plugin's section of the WordPress Support Forums, https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/news-cpt.] At work a few months ago, I needed a lightweight “News” feature for a site
- [About](http://vanwilson.info/about/) - It's about time... And whatever you do, don't blink!
- [Plugins](http://vanwilson.info/wordpress/plugins/) - Wordpress Plugins I have created Back up to Wordpress
- [Wordpress](http://vanwilson.info/wordpress/) - For the last few months, I feel like I have been taking a crash course in Wordpress development. I have created sites for work and for my family. I have learned how to write Wordpress plugins. I have modified Wordpress themes. When it comes to Wordpress, I'm swamped. I have slowly been coming to the
- [Themes](http://vanwilson.info/wordpress/themes/) - Projects related to Wordpress themes Back up to Wordpress
- [Child Theme for Esplanade](http://vanwilson.info/wordpress/themes/esplanade-child-theme/) - I wanted to practice making a child theme with a responsive parent theme. I looked at a few themes, and finally decided on Esplanade. It seems well suited to a straight blog, while others, such as Responsive, had too many business-oriented features for me.
- [Landing Page: A Wordpress Theme for Pages Only](http://vanwilson.info/wordpress/themes/landing-page-a-wordpress-theme-for-pages-only/) - One of the most basic tasks that a Wordpress theme performs is looping through posts to display them. Whether it's recent post on the homepage, a list of posts on an archive page, or a single post on its own page, the Loop (with a capital “L”) is the centerpiece of most Wordpress themes. But what

## News

- [A Test News Item](http://vanwilson.info/news/a-test-news-item/) - Every good boy does fine.

## Glossary Terms

- [Moonlighting](http://vanwilson.info/glossary/moonlighting/) - Comedy detective TV show from the mid 1980s, starring Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd.

## Categories

- [General](http://vanwilson.info/category/general/)
- [Political](http://vanwilson.info/category/political/)
- [Wordpress](http://vanwilson.info/category/wordpress/)
- [Tutorial](http://vanwilson.info/category/tutorial/)
- [Themes](http://vanwilson.info/category/wordpress/themes/)
- [Travel](http://vanwilson.info/category/travel/)
- [Programming](http://vanwilson.info/category/programming/)
- [Web Development](http://vanwilson.info/category/web-development/)
- [Hiking](http://vanwilson.info/category/hiking/)
- [User Experience](http://vanwilson.info/category/user-experience/)

## Tags

- [food](http://vanwilson.info/tag/food/)
- [farming](http://vanwilson.info/tag/farming/)
- [git](http://vanwilson.info/tag/git/)