About (Feb. 2013)

Justin Tadlock holding a big watermelon

Do you ever think you can be two people at once? Well, that’s me sometimes.

See, I was born and raised a country boy in the Deep South. I grew up in a tiny place called Highland Home in a remote area of Alabama. Growing up, I always had dreams of “the big city.” Sure, I was a country boy at heart, but I always longed for something bigger and better.

When I headed to college in 2002, I was fortunate enough to attend Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama, which is a beautiful city with a country attitude. It was the best of both worlds. I could have a nice day out watching the squirrels but still have access to Best Buy a few minutes down the road (any city that has a Best Buy is “the big city” in my book). Plus, the college girls were not above wearing cowboy boots and short skirts.

After earning my degree, I headed off to live in Atlanta, Georgia. Soon after, I cruised overseas to teach English in Seoul, South Korea, one of the largest cities in the world. I loved every minute of it.

I eventually made my way back to where I am now — smalltown Alabama. I love it here, but I miss the big city life too. It’s more the diversity I miss than anything else. Down here, there’s plenty of trailer-trash hicks, wannabe rich people, and a whole lot of nice people in between. Mostly, they’re all good country folk at heart. I don’t necessarily fit in with the gun-totin’-Bible-thumpin’ crowd, but it’s home. It’ll always be home, no matter where I am in the world.

I moved back home to get back in touch with my roots. I wanted to write The Great Southern American novel. Yeah, I need to get on that.

So, you wanna know more about me?

I’m more than just a man with a constant identity crisis. Really. You might even find me interesting.

WordPress

I’m probably best known for my work with WordPress. At the time of writing, I have over 200 posts about WordPress, many of which are awesome tutorials to teach you how to do cool stuff with the system.

I also co-wrote a book called Professional WordPress Plugin Development with two awesome people, Brad Williams and Ozh Richard. If you’re interested in any kind of WordPress development, it’s worth the read. However, I am slightly biased.

Most of my work involving WordPress is on Theme Hybrid, which is where I run my WordPress theme and plugin community. It’s one of the oldest and longest-running clubs in the WordPress ecosystem. The members there have been good to me, and it’s so nice to see many of the same faces around today that were around when the site first opened its doors.

Writing

Right now, I’m sorely behind on writing. I need to take Stephen King’s advice and write at least 1,500 words per day. Technically, I write a lot more than that, but it’s for my job. I need to focus on 1,500 words of creative writing every day.

You can always check out my past work in the Writing section of the site. There’s some good stuff. A little embarrassing stuff. And a whole lot of stuff in between.

Video Games

I’m a Halo fanatic. I own an X-Box for the sole purpose of playing this game. And, to be perfectly honest, I’m not as good as I think I am. But, there’s something deeply satisfying about owning some 12-year-old kid who is driving you insane with his incessant need to spout nonsense into his microphone.

Feel free to join me if you’re into Halo. My gamertag is justintadlock.

Gardening

Since moving back home, I’ve found that I love gardening. The picture at the top of this page is me holding a 50-lb. watermelon I grew last summer.

Gardening is something new for me. I learned a lot growing up watching my parents and grandparents garden, but it was never something I was interested in as a kid. It didn’t fit in with my big city dreams. Now that I’m older, I find it relaxing yet challenging.

Cooking

Cooking is a passion of mine. From time to time, I might post recipes or pictures of food. I learned how to cook at about the age of 11. I’m a child of divorced parents and was living with my dad at that time. He worked the night shift 48-hours/week, so learning how to cook was pretty much a priority. Don’t get me wrong; my dad always made sure I had something to eat prepared. But, I had to learn some things earlier than other kids.

Fortunately, my dad is an awesome cook. Most All of the women in my family are great cooks too. I had a lot of good teachers. Plus, anyone who went to college but didn’t learn how to cook probably had too much money to properly enrich themselves in the true college experience.

Cooking is an ongoing learning experience and experiment. It’s a little bit of art and a little bit of science. That’s what I love about it.

Movies / TV

I don’t have cable or satellite. The only TV programs I’ve actually watched in the last 5 years have been Auburn Tigers football, Atlanta Braves baseball, and a few other shows here and there.

However, I have several hundred movies and TV series on DVD/Blu-ray. My obsession started when I got my first DVD player at the age of 17 and the first X-Men movie. Ever since then, I’ve been building my collection.

I watch more TV shows than movies because I feel like I get more bang for my buck. I get upwards of 16 hours worth of value in comparison with the 2 hours I get from a movie.

My favorite genre is the space opera. And, of course, anything by Joss Whedon.

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