You may have noticed the nice little g+ icon on the site, I've started using a Google+ Page to deliver and organize information about the Contextual Administration module I maintain. This is an interesting new use scenario for me, and I wanted to share what I'm doing and why.
For the past 2 seasons of camps and cons, I've been proposing some material that has taken a lot of its cues from page_manager and ctools. This has been a really hard road to follow because of the complexity inherent in these tools, and as a consequence, only the camps have really given me any real traction on my sessions. This has been encouraging in the sense that my camp sessions have been very well attended and have gone extraordinarily well, and discouraging in the sense that Drupalcon attendees have missed out on these sessions.
Page Manager (and family... i.e. Panels) is starting to get some more traction within our community. New users are finding it, using it, and asking awesome questions about it every day. I've done my part both from a development side as well as a teaching front to try to help that along as much as I can, and I'm very pleased with the fact that the community is beginning to find these tools and really appreciate what they can do. With that being said, I want to pedal some of my own page_manager based wares on those of you who might listen.
Recently, there has a been a LOT of discussion about the future of drupal core and some of its rather "legacy" modules. This is a good conversation to be having, however I think we are spending our efforts in the wrong place, or perhaps better, I think we have or priorities misaligned.
It's been a whole year plus since I last published anything on this blog. A LOT has happened in that time, namely Ju and I have had our second child (Kai) and he is doing great, however for those of you who have read our blog in the past, you'll know that the birth with Alaise did not go so well, and indeed we had a very similar experience this time.
So last night was a doozy! I think we've hit Lacey's first "growth spurt" because she kept Ju and I up and feeding her almost ever 1 1/2 - 2 hours last night. It's amazing how much she can eat, she's so tiny!
So, Ju's asleep, Alaise is fed, and I'm doing some work for a customer, and I look down, and Alaise is just SOOO cute, I had to try capturing my view of her from where I'm sitting now. I hope you all like the photo. :-)
October 22, 2009 my first born, a daughter, entered this world. Alaise Noelle Vanderwater was greeted by her parents and grand parents (on both sides). She's a big baby, 20 inches, with a 14+ inch head, 8 lbs 13 ounces. Ju's labor went pretty well. The epidural did wonders for her. The delivery, on the other hand, was quite difficult, and the size of the baby required the doctor to make a bit of room for her to come down the canal via an episiotomy.
So, I try to keep up with our constantly changing world. It's a very hard thing to do, but I spend so much time on a computer as it is, I try to set aside a little time (at least once a week if not more often) to bring myself up to date on things that interest me besides the web and technology. Those things often include the state of matters in North/South Korea, and American politics. Now Ju hates politics, and this is quite understandable, it's a dirty business with so many moving components as to make any political stance debatable by the opposing side. In essence, there's never a "correct" answer, and this is, and should be, infuriating to all peoples on some level.
Well, today was technically my second official day back in the office. I moved out quite some time ago now due to a number of different factors. Home just became a better environment in which to get things done. However, the demands on my time at the office have become greater and greater, and it just seemed impractical to stay at home any longer. I'm back in the room with "the guys" by which I mean the development team. I haven't been in the same room as them in probably 2+ years. It's a nice change of pace being around people to get work done. Even when I was in the office I wasn't really near other developers and I'm enjoying it.
