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About Xanatos

I have never been a religious man, but I have always had a sense that there was a greater power at work in our lives, and I have always trusted and looked to that source for guidance.

In the fall of 1996, I was working for the Wall Street Journal as a computer and network technician, a job which paid well but offerred little in the way of personal freedom due to the demanding deadlines of the newspaper industry. Holidays and time with my family were rare occasions, as were the days I used to spend hiking in the hills of New England.

One evening, after a very stressful period at the job, I stepped out into the evening air and looked toward the sky. I noticed the beautiful stars, the clarity of the night sky, and without forethought, I began to ask for guidance. I asked to be shown a way to living a life that allowed me the financial resources I needed to live well, while affording me freedom, autonomy, a sense of personal fulfillment, the ability to help others, to spend time with my family, to travel at my wish (not on a two day notice at the company's whim), and to properly fulfill my destiny.

I went inside after that and thought nothing of that moment for some time.

A few weeks later, I was at a computer at the newspaper, in a hurry as usual, and needing to print out a web page. I made a mistake in selecting the print function, and instead I found my screen filled with computer code. I almost cleared it off, and just as I was a fraction of a second from doing so, I noticed that there were words on the page that were the same as those on the web page I had just been viewing. I had had a passing interest in how web pages were created, and the thought crossed my mind that this code might be the answer to that question. So I quickly changed my mind and printed that page, and then the web page itself.

Later that evening, I compared the two and saw that the code was indeed the source code for the web page I was viewing. I played with that code a little, sufficient to verify some of the basic workings, and filed it away.

A few months later, through an article in the Journal, I learned that a group of about 40 people in California were making over 20 million dollars a year on... web site design. I figured that to be about a half million each, and I found that web source code page again, and started playing with it more earnestly.

To make a long story short, I learned HTML and JavaScript, learned more about how to manipulate images in PhotoShop, and work with other programs, and began making small web sites. I started giving away free sites to people I knew who had businesses or interests they wanted on the web. I built my own site and used these free sites as a client list on my own site. Eventually I began creating sites for hire, initially charging as little as $100.00 to build an entire site. Soon the word of my service spread, and I began getting contracts from larger clients capable of greater financial resources. My skills were growing, and I was able to include custom programming in Perl and advanced JavaScript functionality, as well as custom graphics.

Soon, I found myself in posession of my own business, and I was generating an income in excess of what I was making working for the Wall Street Journal- and I had not yet done any significant advertising; my business operated on the good words of others who had benefitted from my services.

In the Summer of 1999, I was seriously considering leaving the Journal, but I was still hesitant to leave that steady, if life-numbing, income. But the decision was being made for me- due to the very efforts of myself and the other technicians in my department, we had established the infrastructure to allow the electronic composition of the Wall Street Journal in New York, (instead of paste-up at the regional composing plants as had been done up to this time), and we were informed of our impending layoff. We were given a severance benefit that was based on our years of service, and I had been with the Journal for 17 years. It was the send-off I needed, and I was able to start my new life as a self-employed business owner with my mortgage paid off.

I fully believe that the Universe, or God, or Spirit, or whatever term you might use to refer to that power that seems to be able to guide events in our lives, heard me that evening when I spoke to the stars, and to this day I continually acknowledge my gratitude and indebtedness to that benevelent force, and this is my public testimony to that gratitude. Spirit, God, Universe... I thank you, and am in your debt.

David Julian Xanatos, December 15, 2000