Hey everyone.

We thought it would be great to start this blog out with some proper introductions. We wanted to let you know who actually makes up the voice of "The Regime".

We started The Regime (our custom design company - www.theregime.com) two years ago with clients made up of some big-name bands, some resaurants, a handful of tech clients, and some ministries. It was a good time, and in May we launched a second company called "Clover". Clover provides beautiful websites for ministries at a super inexpensive rate, as well as a custom CMS (content management system for the non-techies) that we wrote from scratch so that a 65-year-old church admin can create and update the website. You can check it all out (and even demo it) at www.cloversites.com.

Here are the writers on this blog:

Jim Elliston

After working full-time as the worship pastor at Cornerstone Church in SImi Valley for about 3-4 years, Jim felt called to step out of full-time ministry (or at least to not take a paycheck from the church anymore) and start designing Monday-Friday. For the Regime, Jim acts as the Art Director/Producer, and some other random non-important titles. We just hired a marketing guy and another designer for Clover, so Jim is currently trying to figure out what the heck he wants to do with Clover. For now, President/Co-Owner should suffice as a job title.

On a personal note, Jim is married to Sherry (wife of 6 years), and are parents to a chocolate lab named Nacho. They are currently looking into a "fairly" humane solution to Nacho's insessant barking while they are both at work. Here's what we're leaning towards: Dog Silencer Pro. Thoughts?

Ben Rugg

Ben's path to The Regime would sound random if God wasn't totally in control. Three days after graduating college with a (now useless) finance degree, he moved from the suburbs of Chicago to Hollywood to pursue a career in film.  After figuring out that Hollywood was not where God wanted him, he started doing web design to pay the bills.  A bunch of lucky breaks later, he had built a portfolio that allowed him the freedom to do pretty much anything in the world of freelance web design.  He then used that freedom to tie himself down to Jim and form The Regime. 

Because of that move to California, Ben met his wife, who happens to be perfect for him.  A year and a half later, they've got two beautiful foster children and two awesome little cats (Edamame and Wasabi).  Secretly, Ben plans to steal Nacho and give Jim the cats.

In regards to the content of "Beauty and Numbers", here are our promises:

1. We promise to be relevant: Old content on blogs is super boring...

2. We promise to speak our minds and be honest: That can be good and bad. Either way you will know what we are thinking. 

3.  We promise to not uselessly plug any of our company's services or products: Sometimes it might be applicable to a story or a principle (because our companies are built on the same principles we stand on), but we won't be "those guys". 

4. We promise not to use jargon to make us sound smart.

That's all the relevant promises now... Or at least all that we can think of at this time.  We were going to promise that this is going to be the dopest blog of all time, but that's yet to be determined. Although between you and me, it's pretty much a sure thing.