No, not God, just the guy who created Joshua Tree Mug Company. I wanted to write a letter to you and let you know why I did all this and tell you a little about myself. I'm not going to give you a whole life history, but I will tell you a few personal details, all in an effort to get you to buy a few mugs and maybe some of my other creations.
First off, today, October 24, 2019, I decided that I wanted to make this website fun. Both for me and for you. So, to that end, I have started adding my sense of humor, warped as it may be, all over the site. Please don't be insulted by anything you find here. What drove me to this decision Well, I'll tell you. (Bet you weren't expecting that!)
Last night I had a chat with one of my best friends. I had sent out messages to all of my friends and family asking them to help me by sending links to this website to all their friends. Sort of some viral marketing. Please understand that this site is, while an expression of my art, still a place to sell mugs and other stuff and you would not be here is someone had not told you about it or I had not paid some search engine for your click. Marketing for a website is all a part of the process.
Anyway, back to my friend and our conversation. We were chatting and he mentioned that most of his friends would boycott my website because I had Trump mugs listed. In fact, he said, if it were not me that was designing the stuff he wouldn't even consider shopping here. Even though we have liberal mugs as well. He suggested that I build separate websites for each genre of products. My reply was one of shock. I know he was very liberal, but I never expected that kind of bias. I replied that if we as a society are that polarized then it is quite possible that our empire is already lost and we just don't know it yet. I don't believe that. I still believe in America!
So, I decided to run to humor and I hope you will join me.
This site has a little of everything. The designs are whatever comes to me, through lots of different methods. Customers suggest things. I see things in the world around me. I have an inspired thought, not very often.
Let me tell you how this all started. I retired from a professional career in data management in 2005 for health reasons. After trying several different hobbies in 2013 I took up the hobby of photography. I decided to print my own work and be on the Hwy 62 Art Tour in Yucca Valley, California. As my mother calls it this became a "hobby gone wild" and it turned into Innovus Print Shop in 2015, a printing shop that could print just about anything on anything. Over the years I grabbed a couple of domain names for things I thought I would like to do, one of them being JoshuaTreeMugCompany.com and JoshuaTreeMugCo.com for short (Not very short). I've since added JoshuaTreeMugs.com that hosts a visual copy of our products RSS feed and our specials landing pages and JTMugs.com that hosts our individule products landing pages with some of the mugs with 360 degree views.
Innovus Print Shop running under the banner of Innovus Photography, LLC now supports 15 employees in Yucca Valley, California and Twenty Nine Palms, California. I remain retired and come up with ideas for the company. It is a small business that makes stuff for people that want quality printed items that are creatively produced by unique people that want to live the American dream.
My hope is that you will find this website as entertaining as you will find the products on it fun and useful. I hope you will buy something. You may not agree with everything here. That is OK. You don't have to buy anything you don't agree with ot like. Believe me, I won't make you buy a Trump mug if you don't like Trump. But there are some Democrat mugs here too. Feel the Burn!
We had a straight Trump-supporting Christian woman come into our retail store the other day. My mother and I were having a discussion, as I had just designed an LGBTQ mug, about whether that would drive away from the Christian Trump people from the store. I asked here if the mug offended her, the Trump lady. Her reply: "You aren't going to make me buy it, so no." She did happily buy a Trump mug, though.
I purposely will never tell you what political party I support, if any. I will tell you I am a Cristian, but I will never tell you that you have to be one too. I do recommend it, though. I will not point out the sin in your life, because the sin in my own is far greater, I assure you.
With all that being said, take a look around Joshua Tree Mug Company. Find a mug you like and buy it. Buy one for a friend, family member, co-worker or frienemy. You'll be supporting a small business in Yucca Valley, California and having a bit of fun!
If you are so offended by some of the stuff here that you don't like that you won't buy any of stuff here that you do like then I'm not entirely sure that problem lies with me or Joshua Tree Mug Company. But I could be wrong. That did happen before once.
All in all, life is more than any of this stuff. Everyone needs to stop and smell the roses and talk to the Creator a bit more often.
God Bless,
Erick