Is 2009 REALLY over 25% finished? OK. So it is. What was it like for you? My family has seen less of me this year than in years prior. We made a decision to get as close to debt-free as possible this year and that means breaking new ground on income. Some how spending less is supposed to play a role too, but that doesn't sound like any fun now does it? I am thankful to have a family [Wife and four children] that packs in the quality time that we do spend together. I have 3 day weekends every week and we take advantage of that as much as possible. I started the year off unemployed but knowing that I started a new job on Jan. 19th with Slingshot SEO inc. http://www.slingshotseo.com That job has been an awesome blessing to be sure. Not only do I get to utulize my Drupal skills, but I am constantly learning more about web development in general. We all feed off of each other as we raise our skills in PHP, AACHE, LINUX, MySQL, Javascript, JQuery, HTML, CSS, etc. As the years started I had just picked up a contract gig to repair a broken Drupal6 site for the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs. On Jan. 7th that gig quadrupled in size and I had a new partner Ray Stuart to share the load. Truth be known, he did the lion's share of the work while I acclimated to the new job at SlingshotSEO. Late April saw the IU gig take another growth spurt and I was able to bring balance back to our shared efforts. Now the gig is done and paid for and the site is in their possession but oddly enough has not launched. I look forward to showing it off someday. In the mean time, another gig came in. the Drupal5 maintenance of http://www.apbspeakers.com which will also be migrated to Drupal 6 as soon as the D5 site can be fine tuned. Again, Ray Stuart is on board, and its a good thing too. His L.A.M.P. and Flash skills have been 99% of the initial work thus far. Now where moving into other areas and we're both jumping in. Add to all this my Drupal travels, and community involvement. The first week of March saw me in Washington DC for DrupalCon http://dc2009.drupalcon.org Through out the 1st quarter and beyond I continue to manage the local Indiana Drupal Users Group as well as take a more prominent role in the international community of groups via the assistance I offer to the maintainers of http://groups.drupal.org Perhaps the most fun gig I'm involved in right now is building an Electronic Records Management Intranet for a Cardiologist's office in FL. I'm taking Drupal to some wild places with this one. With only 6 concurrent users at a time being served from a BOX in the office, I have tremendous freedom to do some unorthodox things that would never fly in a World Wide Web application! I have more than a few good irons on the fire for some more contract work. A Midwest library wants the non-catalog portion of their site removed from ASP and rebuilt in Drupal so that they can take advantage of the ever growing number and functionality of free Drupal modules. A local construction company is talking to me about a site to promote their business. The owner of that company plays stand up bass in a bluegrass band who also wants a site. Lastly, I fly out to Chicago in a few weeks to present some Drupal Sessions at the CMS Expo 2009 in Chicago http://www.CMSassociation.com/35.html Wheeeeew.. The 1st quarter is over and there is miles to go before I sleep! - DV - http://www/twitter.com/dougvann report to Mollom Printer-friendly version DougVann's blog 1793 reads Send to friend