me talking out loud

I have been mostly out of touch with the PHP world since April when I was hired by MySQL. I admit it - I have let things slip while I settled into the new job and the hoopla of the new house - figuring that not much will change in the 6 months or so while I am gone. How wrong I was.

The last couple of days I have had a few startling revelations on how much has changed. The big one the keyed me to it was watching the ##php channel on freenode and going to look up an answer from the manual to a question… Only to find the manual had been completely reorganized and I had no clue where to go to find what I was looking for. I asked a couple of friends when the manual changed - and they told me “a while ago”… clue X 4 moment!

Go to check out the PHPWomen site - and we are almost at 400 registered members, with lots of introductions in the forums… I normally would try to say hello to everyone that introduces themselves and feel bad for not doing it. To those I have missed - my apologies. Sheesh - I have not even looked over the articles for the contest till today.

Next - I *really* looked at the people who were chit chatting in #phpc on freenode… and there are way too many that I have no clue who they are! Me - the local busy body - the one who for the most part knew everyone in there (I know - sounds egotistical - but true). Outrageous!

Heck - I have not gone to the last couple of PHP User group meetings or met with any of my PHP friends just to hang out or read phpdeveloper.org in months! I am seriously slacking! Someone slap me please.

Yep - I have finally ready for my trip to the MySQL User Conference in Santa Clara. MySQL and Oreilly have been incredibly generous in providing us the opportunity to attend their conference, giving us an exhibition booth and a free pass to all the sessions. With out them - we couldn’t have gone.

Anyway - for those that will be there, make sure to stop by our booth and pick yourself up a PHPWomen sticker (for your laptop, car, bag or anywhere else you can think of). Or if you just want to talk about what we are and what we are doing or the weather - that is great too. Come out and meet me!

I have to admit to not writing much lately on the blog - mostly because I haven’t been doing anything interesting. Visiting family, making new friends, catching up on my personal reading (no tech books - well ok only a few - Mostly High Performance MySQL with a dash of Flex 2), relaxing from the move and the craziness of the last year… basically trying to feel human again rather then a wound up ball of stress that is ready to explode - Man have I needed this break. This has got to be the longest stretch I have ever done where I intentionally tried to stay away from the computer and anything related to work to regain my personal internal balance. And it has been much more difficult then I thought it would be (still ended up doing stuff for PHPWomen and going to PHP User Group meetings… ). Wonder if I fulfill the definition of a junky.

As much as I love my work and the people… sometimes you have to step back and remember that life does go on - even when the computer is turned off. I mostly managed to do it.

Unfortunately my time to stop and relax is coming to an end soon. And I have to say I will miss it even as I revel in my ability to get back into to the game.

Just wanted to thank Elizabeth Naramore, Elizabeth Smith and Cal Evans (our booth babe) for handing out the PHPWomen T-shirts and talking to people about us at php|tek to help get the word out. You guys are great! I still can’t believe all 50 shirts are gone

You can see a great picture of the gang here

Just wanted to drop a quick note to update the world on PHPWomen. During the holidays the site became rather quiet, but then so many of us (myself included) were out doing the holiday/family things and let the PHP world take the back burner.

Since then we have once more started to pick up. We currently have ~180 registered users on our forums (200 is coming quicker then I thought) and Kathy Reid recently made us a custom theme for the site (a forum skin is on its way to unify the site looks).

Regular users are visiting again and new coders are starting to find mentors quietly (I now have a little sis myself). I just recently added a thread to the Member’s Benefits section to help them find each other. Hopefully it helps in some small way to bring and keep women in the field.