walkah: life

This year promises to be an exciting one - and one that proves to be full of changes galore. As I mentioned in my last post, much of my 2010 change began late in 2009.

Cue the Bowie...

Leaving Lullabot

Although it's been largely quiet (and really not a huge deal), before the rumours spread too far: I've left my position as the Director of Education for Lullabot. I'm leaving behind a totally awesome team and a wonderful job (in the midst of a recession). Why on earth?!

Let me be very clear: Lullabot isn't in danger, stopping Drupal training, nor is there any backroom drama. The 'bots are wonderful people and chances are very good that we'll continue to collaborate in the future (at the very least, there's still hugs).

This was a very personal decision - and one that was a long time coming. For the morbidly curious, it boils down to three things (and those of you who know me well, know it always comes down to three things):

Travel: Anyone who is friends with a 'bot on Dopplr or Tripit knows that the job entails a lot of time on the road. With over 230 days on the road in the past 2 years, I needed and my kids deserved a break. While we (Lullabot and I) largely worked around this - it's still just part of the gig.

Drupal: I stood up in front of a rather large group of Drupal folks almost a year ago and explained why I hate Drupal - so it's obvious, right? While I feel the points I tried to make still face the community at large (such as smallcore/drupal is not a product, or even rethinking the maintainer structure), I don't actually hate Drupal (as those of you who grok sarcasm might have noted).

However, Drupal has been my full-time job for 6 years. In that time, the community (and the software) has grown and changed considerably. It has been an amazing ride. As Dries mentioned to me on the phone a few weeks ago, "once a Drupal guy, always a Drupal guy". This is probably true - I have no intention of leaving the community, but I am ready for some new challenges.

Open Web: One thing people may have noticed is that when I have had the chance to hack on Drupal lately - it tends to involve "open web" or "open standards" implementations (notably, OpenID etc). Many folks have also noticed that my contributions have trailed off lately. When your "after hours" time starts including more things like "sleep" - your after hours projects take a hit.

I'd like to get back to building cool, new stuff. While I certainly get a lot out of teaching people how to make the most of the tools available, I'm passionate about building the next tools (which doesn't exclude Drupal). These are interesting times on the internets, I wanna have my nose in the middle of it.

Now what?

Officially, I will be freelancing (technically have been for a few weeks). I've already got some interesting things lined up that I'm excited to start talking about soon.

It's that time of year - for reflecting and resolving - and, naturally... blogging about it.

2009 was not awesome. Not a terribly awful year, nor my worst ever. It was, however, a year full of challenges - all of which have been opportunities for growth. 2009, though, got off to a rough start and didn't end much better. As much as I've grown, I'm definitely looking forward to moving forward.

I don't know if I have resolutions this year, per se. I do have two words that have been on my mind a lot lately:

CREATE I am eager and excited to do more, to make more. I would like to write more, build more tech and (dare I say it?) write some music. I want to look back next year when doing this blog post and be able to see all the things I've created - good and bad. I'd like to have fewer ideas left swimming in my head otherwise untouched.

OPEN I've long been an advocate, user and developer of open source software. In part, it's a renewed passion for free and open technologies. Beyond that, however, continuing to move towards openness in my life, my heart and in my relationships.

2010 promises to be another year of great change for me. Lots of which is already underway (more on that soon).

Here's hoping you and that you stick to your resolutions and reach your goals and have an awesome year!

Well, this post - much like the first five days of 2009 - has not gone as I'd planned.

Looking back on 2008, it was another year of intense growth and change - as they all seem to be lately. I moved again, did a lot of travelling and had a pretty big year as a Lullabot (1 major event, 1 book, 1 DVD, 7 workshops, and countless hours of getting people over their Drupal hurdles).

2009 holds lots of opportunity, potential and continued opportunities for growth and change. As far as resolutions, however, I have just one:

get healthy

That's right, the usual sleep more, eat better, exercise (period), go to the doctor, see a dentist, take time off, look out for me kind of just get healthy.

Ready? begin.

My last several weeks (months?) have been pretty darn hectic preparing for Do It With Drupal. Well, we've done it with Drupal - and it was awesome! It was really fun bringing the whole Lullabot team to make it happen. The speakers were awesome, the venue was great and the people rocked.

For those of you who missed it, the event was pretty well documented via the twitter backchannel and flickr photos. Thanks everyone!

I'm back home now... oh - and I moved! I'm now living in a beautiful house at St. Clair and Dufferin.

So it's time to settle in for the holiday season, finish getting unpacked and settled and enjoy a little breathing room. To kick it off, I'm heading to #hohoto tonight. Looking forward to partying with my local Toronto people!

Happy New Year, everyone! I'd thought I'd do one of those popular 2007 recap / 2008 resolution posts... largely for my own future interest.

2007 was a big year for me (again). I left Bryght (the company I co-founded in 2004) and a few months later happily joined Lullabot (my absolute favourite job to date). My divorce finalized and I moved. I sold a car and a house. I spent a lot of time working on OpenID (particularly getting it into core for Drupal 6). I traveled to Vancouver, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Barcelona, Providence and Boston. Camryn turned 5, Andrew turned 10, and I turned 30. *Phew*

I'm really looking forward to 2008. I have very high hopes. Work is busy, exciting and looks like it should be a very successful year. I'm happy, healthy and loving life. I want to drink more water, sleep more, see more of the world and meet more people. With day #1 of the year just finished, I'm off to a good start and ready for more.

Bring it on, 2008. I'm ready :)

For those of you who hadn't heard: two weeks ago (on November 1st), I moved. I have finally said "so long" to the suburbs. If you're familiar with Toronto, I'm now living on Gladstone Ave, just north of Bloor (near Dovercourt Park). I have to admit, I'm pretty darn happy about it.

Despite having been on the road for 11 of my first 15 days in my new place, I feel like I'm already starting to settle in a bit. I've already met 4 neighbors, am walking distance from pretty much everything I need (including Rosie's convenience on the corner which just so happens to stock organic dairy and organic coffee!) and it turns out a handful of friends already live in the 'hood.

More soon I'm sure, but expect to see me around the city (and at the office) a whole lot more now!