Anyway, the new blog is up as a group project from the whole Vintage 56 crew, and I think it will be a great place to hear some of my friends talk about current projects and what we’re all learning about video, graphics, audio, iPhone development, etc. In the future, I plan on making sure that all of my most accessible web/iPhone goodness ends up on there. I’ll keep using this blog for the more personal and/or deeply nerdy discussions, though, so have no fear. I’ll also keep more sardonic posts on here. I know what you come here for.

In other news, my beautiful, thoughtful wife saw the new Vintage 56 website and blog and immediately gave me her unconditional encouragement: “You really need to update Pocket Revolutionary…  it’s pretty dated.” On that note, I’ll probably start working on that redesign right after I finish her new website.

Aside from my attack on the bourgeoisie of TYPO3 templating, I wanted to mention my big new adventure: Vintage 56. Yes, although I may hate the escapade that was freelancing (on the side), I’m really excited about getting to form an honest-to-goodness production/design agency with some great people that I’ve worked with at Generals International for years. Basically, we’ve figured out how to make our own mark doing web, iPhone apps, graphics, video, and audio production with clients we love and help out a ministry by donating a large portion of our profits to Generals. Actually, we’re helping a lot of ministries and medium-size companies right now because they’re getting the full agency treatment without the full agency budget. Basically, I get to work with really talented people, and I wanted to brag on them. You can check out http://vin56.com to see what I’m talking about (yes, the video works on iPads, iPhones, and iPods).

p.s. – You need to check out our graphic designer’s blog…  she’s awesome.

p.p.s. – We will be launching another blog for Vintage 56 soon, but I’ve been slacking off– writing a frickin’ book. Stop pestering me. Seriously. I need to go.

Shock. Awe. I know. It was an easy decision based on the server stack we were running, our growth plans, and the fact that we needed to train intern developers with a very quick turnaround. We went with the sexy newcomer, but that’s not the interesting story. The interesting part is that it wasn’t a big deal at all. With good frameworks, it didn’t really matter what language we chose.

Part of the reason that I love frameworks so much is that dropping from CakePHP to Ruby on Rails is a syntactical change and not a process change. In a way, frameworks are just enforced design patterns (MVC, mostly, in my case). Plus, playing with a different language after all this time away has been great experience. This jaunt into the land o’ pure object-oriented madness and strict coding rules has made my PHP coding (especially CakePHP) better. I have new appreciation for fat models and thin controllers, and I throw in the ternary operator more often. On top of that, I’m getting to teach people (like my friend Neil) who have never really done web development on this level. Through teaching others about MVC architectures, I’ve gotten better.

So, I’m still a PHP developer. It’s the basis for 80% of my work projects and all of my freelancing.
I’m having fun, though, on the other side. Stretching my PHP skills, adding to my toolbox, and remembering that I was just a better programmer when I couldn’t rely on ten-year old knowledge.

1. She has a den. When it’s all just too much activity, she hides in the back of our closet to get some much needed alone time.
2. She naps. If she’s tired and there’s nothing exciting happening, she takes the opportunity to recharge before the evening shift.
3. She keeps a schedule. We may not always appreciate her schedule, but she tries to be consistent (when we don’t mess it up with our own late nights).
4. She spends time with the family. Every evening, she makes time to sit directly on our laps or at least push us off the couch when necessary.

(via Phil Cooke)

Okay, so I have to give a quick status report, and that should be no big deal. The problem is I unwittingly run a “black box” operation. I’m borrowing this term from Merlin Mann (see the slide), but the idea is that my job is viewed from the outside as thus: requests, deadlines, emails and other stuff people understand go in, I do whatever I’m paid to do, and results come out. Whatever I’m actually doing between the request and the result is in the “black box” where nobody really wants to see exactly what I’m doing or how, they’re just patiently waiting at the other end for the results. This means I can’t just spit out the last thing I was working on (e.g. Refactoring the Authorize.net component to abstract response handling into the main order controller) or give a thirty-minute diatribe on PHP frameworks. I need to say something concise (my boss is busy), meaningful (no jargon), and not over-simplified (he’s not stupid, either).

So, I have created the Elevator Pitch Status Report. The “elevator pitch” is what entrepreneurs like to talk about. It’s what you can say about your current idea in the span of an elevator ride (maybe 30 seconds). For the purpose of my status report, though, that’s about as much information I can instantly recall without Basecamp, OmniFocus, or Moleskine in hand, and it keeps me from ad-libbing into techno-babble.Throwing around technical jargon may work to get me out of a question I don’t want to answer, but it doesn’t make my boss know that everything is under control and all is right with the world. At the same time, I try not talk down to anybody and give the anti-social geek answer: “Fixing stuff”. So, after each major task, I try to update my mental 30-second status report. I just ask myself the four secret questions that are all really behind the status request and memorize the answers.

• What is the current sub-project? (Designing the pages, creating shipping calculations, etc.)
• What is the last task I actually did?
• How did that move us along the timeline?
• Has the timeline changed?

The identified phases [of burnout - not in a particular order], several of which I bet sound familiar, are:

• A compulsion to prove oneself
• Working harder
• Neglecting one’s own needs
• Displacement of conflict (the person does not realize the root cause of the distress)
• Revision of values (friends, family, hobbies, etc., are dismissed)
• Denial of emerging problems (cynicism, aggression, and frustration become apparent)
• Withdrawal from social contexts, potential for alcohol or drug abuse
• Behavioral changes become more visible to others
• Inner emptiness
• Depression
• Burnout syndrome (including suicidal thoughts and complete mental and physical collapse)

A List Apart – Burnout