Boyink! - Spring Forward on the Web

I’m pleased to announce that Boyink Interactive has completed another ExpressionEngine classroom training experience through Train-ee.  9 students spent four days in a San Antonio bed & breakfast learning the ins and outs of the ExpressionEngine content management system from EllisLab.  The detailed writeup of the class is over on the Train-ee news page, and photos from the event can be found on the Train-ee Flickr account. 

The next ExpressionEngine class will be either in late May or early June, back in Holland, Michigan. 

My grandmother on my father’s side was the oldest of 13 kids.  The family had a farm just outside Zeeland, MI - maybe a 15 minute drive from where I live in Holland, MI.  The family continues - albeit with numbers dwindling - to get together at Christmas time.  At this year’s Christmas party my uncle brought the auction poster that I’ve scanned and posted here.

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Just because it works for someone else doesn’t mean it’s going to work for you.

This is one of those completely self-serving posts that are always uncomfortable for me to write - but as much as the Donald Trump annoys me he does make a good point when he says “Toot your own horn, because no one else will”.

So - I need to put on my PR hat for a moment.

Packt Publishing is the publisher of a number of technical and software books -and this year they also ran a CMS Award event designed to recognize content management solutions within the open source community. As part of that award event they also choose “MVPs” from within the community, and I was choosen as the MVP for ExpressionEngine.

Honestly, I was completely unaware of this event - and award - until informed of it via Twitter.  I’m quite humbled by being on that list - especially since most of the other people chosen are the CMS developers (you know, the really smart people that actually solve the challenges vs. just telling others how stuff works..)

However - it’s very nice to be recognized for work that’s already very rewarding and a great deal of fun besides.  My thanks to whoever took the time to submit my name as a nomination.

I was fortunate enough this week to get a bit of a break - and spent Wednesday night and all day yesterday at Ludington State Park here in W. MI.  I’ve been visiting this park since I was a kid.  It’s probably my favorite spot in the state - having both inland lake shoreline and Lake Michigan shoreline, connected by a river with a dam.  There are miles of hiking trails plus fishing, hunting, tubing, canoeing and bikepaths. 

Normally we go there as a family but this visit was just a time for me to be disconnected and offline with no responsibilities.  Call it a mini sabbatical, call it a walkabout, call it a vacation - it’s something I want to do at least once a year.

I have more pictures up on Flickr, but here are the bookending sunrise and sunset shots: