There and Back Again

The presentation last night went pretty well. I gave my short presentation, (the simple slides are up) using the phpDocumentor Manual for complex examples and showing some of the possibilities. Then we talked a bit about the fun stuff coming in php5. It looks like simpleXML will be one of the big php5 features that makes it worth switching.

I’ll be giving the presentation at my local PHP users group, AzPHP, tonight. The topic will be “an Introduction to phpDocumentor” i’ll be going through a number of hello world type examples, and then showing some of the more complex functionality by looking at some of the ways phpDocumentor documents itself. I’ll also be answering any questions that people might have.

The meeting starts at 7pm at Walts TV in Tempe.

The AzPHP website has more details and a map.

It was raining this morning, so i had to drive to work or get wet. So I drove, made for an odd start to the morning, if it rained here anymore often then I would have to get an umbrella so that I wouldn’t miss the morning walk to work.

But since this is Phoenix I don’t think im going to get an umbrella since i’ll only get to use it every 6 months.

Its been an extremely lonely weekend. I went out with friends but there is just too much time. To much time with nothing but me, and nothing i want to do. Boredom and loneliness, what a combination.

I’ve talked to a lot of people over the last 24 hours, its been hard but its been good. I know i shouldn’t be hard on myself and that this sort of thing is never one person’s fault. It really isn’t either of our faults, it just is. We grew we changed, we grew apart, we no longer had the will to fight to stay together, their just wasn’t joy in it. I know i learned a lot, and i know I now have the opportunity to learn a lot more.

But that doesn’t mean that sometimes I forget these things, or get annoyed when i reminded of them. It doesn’t mean that sometimes i wouldn’t rather lash out at Megan and try to hurt her.

I know i won’t even lose Megan as a friend unless I want to (and even then I’m sure she won’t let me go without a fight), and I really don’t but I still worry myself that I’ll do something stupid when im not thinking and I’m just acting.

Sometimes its hard to have faith in yourself, I know I need to move on, I know I have to move on. But right now it hurts as often as it feels right, but I guess thats ok too.

Things went pretty good today, there were only a couple very odd (odd in how to reply not the question) how did the vacation go questions. I had a meeting with my boss Dan and his boss Tara, it was going to be about my plans to leave at the end of July, they were very nice and agreed to let me work in London remotely for 3-4 months at the end of July instead.

Guess the timing worked out on things, if Megan and I had waited another week to bring this to the end I would have missed this option.

So now i guess its just for all the technical details (not really in order yet)

• Get a new passport (mines expired)
• Set a date to leave
• Set a date to return
• Find out if i need a visa to stay for 3-4 months
• Pack up my aparment and get rid of everything i don’t want to store
• Decided what to do with my car
• Move out of my apartment
• Find a place to live in London
• Find out what my options are for communiation (do they have pre-paid cell phones in england with decent long distance rates?)
• get the deatils on Cisco offices in London
• whatever else i haven’t thought of yet

Another good thing to do would be to wake up one morning and not think about Megan, if anyone knows a way to think yourself out of thinking about someone let me know.

Like a book one Chapter of my life closed today. It was a chapter that started back in highschool and has been a defining point of my life over the last 7 years. Megan and I had our good times and our bad, but i guess over the last couple years the bad have been more prelevant.

I’m no longer engaged to be married to Megan, were no longer dating, were nothing but friends. Its been a long time since this has been our status, and I hope I can remember how to be just a friend to her, so I don’t lose this part of our relationship as well. It would be really hard to lose my future wife and my best friend at the same time.

Now this might seem sudden to many of you, but thats really cause im a private person, the wedding was called off around Christmas and we’ve been on a “break” since then. This weekend I took a couple days off and went to visit Megan, it was only meant to be as a friend. On sunday we drove to San Francisco and stayed at a really nice hotel, on monday we went an toured alcatraz before driving back. It was fun (well except for the rain on monday) about on par with the normal vacation I plan. They never go as good as I hope but it was still and ok time and a good memory.

Of course the only problem with the trip was me lying to myself, It wasn’t just a trip to visit a new city and spend some time talking to my best friend. I also hoped to find a spark, just a little one, not one that started our relationship back up, I know were not really ready for that, but one that said it was possible in the future. One that said after Megan was back from visiting her family in Michigan for the summer that it was ok for to feel each other out again. That I might ask her out on a date and she might say yes, that there was still love left.

And I felt that spark in me, walking around the city, being amazed by insanely steep hills, and laughing at each others jokes. Running in from the rain, taking a nap. I felt a spark that made me want to give it another try, but I could tell Megan didn’t, and I kept having those moments when the past krept in, we were sitting at a cafe eating breakfast and I wanted to reach across the table and hold her hands like we had done so many times in the past. But I knew we weren’t there anymore so I didn’t and instead I would sigh and get a far off look and Megan would ask if I was ok. And what do you say, sure i’m ok but I would be better things hadn’t fallen apart. I wish I would have opened up that morning to her, I don’t know if it would have made a difference but I would have had something instead of reget I have now.

So today Megan got up early to write a paper, she woke me up (I was sleeping on the couch) making coffee, it was nice to not wake up missing her. It was cold so I went back to sleep in her bed while she wrote, it was so comforting falling asleep to the soft pounding on the keyboard. She woke me up an hour latter, we went on a walk got some breakfast, it was nice, conversation, activity, closeness, but I just couldn’t the complication of our past and what I wanted out of things.

Around 11 I drove Megan to the eye doctor and then we went to Toast for lunch, its a nice little cafe, more of a normal restaraunt then Megan and I had talked about starting, but very charming. There were a number of ackward moments at lunch, I just couldn’t stop staring at Megan, she seemed so stunning in that shirt, she was everything I had fallen in love with. The food was good, I drove her home, before she left the car I applogized about all the akward moments over the weekend, she seemed grateful that I had done that instead of brining up how much I still loved her.

I got in the car and drove off, stopped and got some gas and a bottle of water, I could have drove home sent a text message when I got in, and had a nice fullfilling vacation. But my mind was racing my emotions took control and I sent a nice simple text message

I still love you

I couple minutes latter I got the reply

Im just not there any more. We’ve had our time. Its over.

That was more then I could take, I pulled off the highway and tried calling, I got voice mail, Megan must have already been in class, I left some stupid message about wanting the ring back. I sent a couple more text messages and another voice mail. She messaged back to STOP. I did. My mind raced and I focused on driving, focused on my future, focused on what I needed to do to manage.

Its not like i didn’t know it was over, or even that that small statement was how Megan felt, there was no spark, a couple weeks ago Megan told me her theory on Love, she even let me read a story she wrote about it. Its a pretty simple message, all relationships fail, its the time along the way that matters, the journey that counts. It wasn’t what i wanted to hear, I think all that means, is its ok to give up. 7 years of good times and bad, relationships don’t have to be treated as investments into your future, into your soul, there a fun journey you should enjoy and push aside when things get tough, what matters is your happy now.

I just don’t know what to think about that, and like I said the problems aren’t new, we’ve been in a long distance relationship for 4 years, and when I graduated I didn’t move to LA for Megan, I didn’t even hold up to my promise of working remote half the time to spend more time with Her. I had the time, I had the energy and I let us slip away. And then in January I saw how foolish I had been, i started making changes hoping that getting my priorities straight working for what i really wanted would fix Megan and I, that it would give my another chance, i chance i so despertly wanted. But at least at this point it didn’t. And i feel like pushing the way I did today means it never will.

So you close a chapter and you open a new one.

Whats that mean for me, for my life here in Phoenix, for my job. Well I already decided I wasn’t happy here in Phoenix working as a consultant for Cisco. That doesn’t mean I won’t be doing that for a bit longer but it does mean I’m making changes.

First i’ve started to working on changing myself, I work out everyday, i’ve been eating better. I’ve put my prioities in order. And at the top of that list is my relationships with the people I love, and way down the list is work i’ve put at the top for so long.

I’ve decided to leave Phoenix, I wish it could happen right now, but I have a lease and no way short of 5k of getting out of it, so im here until July. I’m thinking of moving to San Diego or to Los Angeles. Yes thats teh same Los Angeles i use to hate, the same one I wouldn’t move to 8 months ago, i’ve changed, and its changed for me. Its a very different city, but if you just give up and let it be itself its a really great place. San Diego is on the list because its possible for me to have a great opportunity there working for a friend in a pure open source php company, pretty close to a dream job right now.

But on the drive home I decided that just moving isn’t enough, I need to do something to challenge myself, to really prove i’m not this boring guy in Phoenix, to foolish to put the effort into what he really wanted.

Taking a dream from Megan, im going to attempt to live in London for awhile. Now i’m not planing on moving there longterm at least not now, but I am hoping to live there for 3-4 months. The great fun in this situation is that if i’m really lucky I can just keep working for Cisco during that time. It would mean some changes in my role at work, but nothing big, just moving me from the one running projects to the one dutifly completing tasks. Tomorrow i’ll talk to my boss Dan and see if its a possibility or if its just wishfull thinking.

After the time in London i’ll move to some place in California, either contining to work for Cisco remotly or finding a new job, depending how the time in London went. I hope that through this I can change enough, that I can grow enough, that I can truly move on from having my heart ripped right out. From relizing that the ship was going under until I started to bail.

While this is out of order I thought about this a lot on my drive today, and I want to put it down.

I’m a pretty simple person, all i really want is someone to share my life with. Someone to hold hands with walking down the street, someone to talk to when i’m sad, someone to share my triumphs with, someone to care about and protect, someone to congradulate when they succeed, someone to poke me in the side and tease me when im being too serious. Someone who makes me want to be a better man.

I just wish i could have figured this out a year ago.

Greg and I released phpDocumentor 1.3.0 RC2 today, getting really close to a 1.3.0 release, though if the daily changes on php5 features don’t stop it will take at llast 1 more release to support ph5p finale:

Release Announcement follows:

The phpDocumentor team is pleased to announce the release of phpDocumentor 1.3.0 RC2.

This release add PHP 5 support and a number of bug fixes

This will be the last release in the 1.x series. 2.0 is next.

Features added to this release include:

• Full PHP 5 support, phpDocumentor both runs in and parses Zend Engine 2
  language constructs. Note that you must be running phpDocumentor in
  PHP 5 in order to parse PHP 5 code
• inline {@example} tag - this works just like {@source} except that
  it displays the contents of another file. In tutorials, it works
  like <programlisting>
• customizable README/INSTALL/CHANGELOG files
• phpDocumentor tries to run .ini files out of the current directory
  first, to allow you to put them anywhere you want to
• multi-national characters are now allowed in package/subpackage names

Notice: PEAR users will want to read the release notes for directions on how to automatically setup the web interface on install

Documentation http://phpdoc.org/docs/
Release Notes http://phpdoc.org/notes/Release-1.3.0

ChangeLog http://phpdoc.org/notes/ChangeLog
Download http://phpdocu.sourceforge.net/downloads.php

Been quite a hyper night for me, lots of talking thinking. TV is on history channel show on mining, i’ve seen it a couple times already.

I can’t decide how much i really want to share with everyone else, but i don’t want to lose these thoughts either. And since I don’t store thoughts anywhere else you get to see lots of random posts.

I finally got these lyrics from a Dave Matthews song tonight:
“the real problem in the world is that we look at each other wondering what the other is thinking, but we never say a thing, so these crimes between us grow deeper”

I think i’ve done this a lot over my short life, I have a habit of losing people I care deeply about, i don’t even notice its happening or relieze it before its too late. But if i look back i see it happening. There must be points where I wonder what the other person is thinking, or they of me, but it never happens. A couple years down the road your best friend in the world is somone you say hi too when you see them.

It’s amazing how often this has happened to me, my goal is to not let it happen again. There is no reason to let a friend slip away when you still enjoy talking to them, and at least it seems that they enjoy talking to you.

So last week I read Eastern Standard Tribe, by Cory Doctorow

In it he write: The theme of this story is: �Would you rather be smart or happy?�

A short I read by a friend tonight made me rememeber that phrase.

Odd how you find yourself in the same place as someone in a book, of course neither the book or the short story answered the question for me.

So i guess i’ve been asking myself: Would you rather be smart or happy?

(maybe i’ll rename my blog to that)

I’m taking a bit of a vacation so I won’t be online or blogging for a week or so.

Hopefully things work out and I have a good time, my vaction plans have a habit of going sidewise, and while its never a bad time its never what I was looking for.

I’m pleased to announce that Nusphere PhpED 3.3 is shipping with a bundled version of phpDocumentor.

The integration is nicely done, and makes it extremely easy to generate docs for projects you have setup in PhpED.

For more details checkout:

http://www.nusphere.com/

http://www.nusphere.com/products/index.htm

also if someone wants to writeup a little page showing the integration and howto use it let me know, its not hard to use but I would like to promote this hoping that phpDocumentor will get integrated in some of the other PHP IDEs as well.

Firebird Firefox and Thunderbird had a new release.

Yes Firefox is the new name, and while its yet another change at least its similar to Firebird, and hopefully this name will last.

The mozilla foundation is also starting to get active on the legal front, trademarks are so much fun.

The new release of Nusphere PhpED includes an intergrated bundled copy of phpDocumentor. I’ll get some screen shots and a quick howto up once I get the eval version installed, and phpDocumentor 1.3.0rc1 out on the SF servers.

Got an interesting email a couple days ago. Seems on of the commercial PHP IDE’s will be shipping phpDocumentor with its next release.

Its nice to get to a point where someone would considering doing this instead of doing their own thing like Zend has done.

I’ll do a full announcement with more details when things are actually released, I don’t think its a big secret or anything but I’m making everyone playing the guessing game until I have a feature page with phpDocumentor on it to link too.

Every once and awhile even Slashdot finds something that I haven’t already heard about and im actualy interesting in.

Good article on old tech that keeps plugging away. One of my favorites is the comeback of the Mainframe computer, nothing like something new (linux) bringing back the dinosaur.

I upgraded to WordPress 1.0.1 today stuff changed and I broke my layout a bit, its kinda repaired, guess i’ll have to make something new.

I got a atom feed now, so im one of the cool guys.

It might be based on QT but i won’t hold that against it since its free and supports PHP code generation. Umbrello might be the uml tool Greg’s been looking for.

WACT just might be the PHP framework i’ve been looking for. phpPatterns has an article giving some details, i’ll blog more after i code a project using it, but it would be great to get others thoughts on it.

Some how i remember the Super Bowl having lots of good comercials, but in this years CBS version all i saw was a bunch of ads for CBS’s worthless TV shows. There were also so local ads that sucked.

Hopefully someone who will actually sell ad space is broadcasting the Super Bowl next year.

I didn’t watch most of the first half, since the teams sucked i missed nothing, maybe some of the ads were there, guess i’ll just watch the ads on IFILM and turn off the game (nothing like the 2 most boring teams in the NFL in the big game).