No San Diego This Year

It's the week before Thanksgiving and it feels wierd not to be flying to San Diego to walk in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure. I walked there the previous two years and really enjoyed the experience. The first year the weather was absolutely beautiful. It was 60's and sunny all three days. Last year the weather was not quite so nice. It rained for most of Days 2 and 3. That made the walk a litte more challenging but the weekend was still a good experience. I miss seeing the Ocean again this year. I live close to Lake Michigan so I get to see water often enough but it's just not the same.

I really enjoyed the Twin Cities this year but it was over so early in the year since it was before Labor Day. I just feel like I should be doing something this weekend and I am not. Actually it will be nice to have this weekend to get ready for Thanksgiving. I hope the walkers in San Diego have an awesome weekend to finish up the series for this year. Once that is done I will start more aggressive fund raising for my walk next year.

No Google Apps For Me

About a month ago I had posted about my intention to move my e-mail services over to Google Apps. I did move my e-mail over for a short time but decided to move back because I really didn't care for it. There were also a number of logistical reasons that I don't use it anymore and use my own VPS for e-mail. One of the biggest reasons is the ability for me to backup my data. With my VPS and CPANEL, I can very easily create a backup of my complete domain and download it to my computer to keep a backup. Backing up a domain of Google Apps Data is not as easy. Another reason that I am not using it anymore is because one of my original intentions to move was to see how well it worked so that I could eventually move my Church's e-mail over to Google Apps. That is not a possibility anymore since Google has revised their terms of service and excluded Churches from getting their free service like other non-profits do. I really do prefer the CPANEL interface to managing my e-mail accounts anyway.

Google for E-Mail

I have been hosting my own e-mail for some time now but have decided that it's really not worth it for me at this time. I can continue to host my website on my VPS and host my e-mail using a personal domain on the low end google apps for free. There are some issues with hosting your own e-mail server that are just not worth it. Many ISP's and spam lists will blacklist IP ranges based on bad e-mails from a particiular host and even if your server is just one IP address in that range, they will blacklist. Using the G-Mail SMTP server makes it easier to send out e-mails. I also like the web interface of Gmail much better than the ones that came with my cpanel host. The biggest drawback with Google is the 10 account limit for free domains. Thankfully my needs are small enough.

The 2011 Twin Cities 3-Day

 

This past weekend I travelled to the Twin Cities for the 3-Day. This was my fifth year walking. This year we had a team of 10 signed up but three of our teammates had some things come up and were not able to join us this weekend. We missed them but we still had an amazing weekend. Getting to this 3-Day was a little different than years past too. When I have walked in Chicago it was an easy hour drive and I was at pre walk hotel. When I walked San Diego, I flew and that was pretty much a solo travel day. This year I had a six hour drive to get to the pre walk hotel and I was picking up four teammates along the way. It was a fun ride. We stopped for Lunch and spent quite a bit talking about previous walks. One of the teammates that was with us was a first time walker so we had plenty of tips and advice for her. Once we got to our Hotel we had time to relax and wait for the other two members of our team to arrive since they were flying in from Southern Illinois. Once we were all together we had a great dinner and then headed off to bed since 4:30 AM comes way too fast.

The team headed down to the bus to opening at 5:30. It was still dark when the bus picked us up and would be for a little while longer. Once we dropped our gear off it was time to take a couple pictures and wait for Opening Ceremonies so we could get out and get walking,

We had our team picture taken at Opening so everyone can see what we look like before we spend the weekend sleeping in tents and walking all day.

The morning of Day 1 is usually the hardest day to get going just because you have so many people heading out of Opening at once.

We had something like 2100 walkers starting out. Add to that we were in a somewhat urban area and we had to wait for traffic in some places and that makes for a slow start to the day. Once you get past the first pit stop then it tends to spread out a little bit. By Lunch on Day 1 we had set a pretty comfortable pace. I was really impressed by the number of people that turned out to support the walkers on Day 1. Usually Friday is a little quieter since a lot of people still have to work. Walking along the chain of lakes was cool. The longest stretch we had on Day 1 was 3.7 miles. It seemed a lot longer. You would be amazed at how much you look forward to getting to the pit stops when you have been drinking lots of water and gatroaide all day. The scenery on Day 1 was awesome. Loved walking across the Mississippi river. Once we got back to camp we got a chance to sit down and relax for a little. As many cities had done in the past, we had a local High School groups that had volunteered to haul baggage and setup tents for the walkers when they arrive at camp. We really appreciate that. After a shower and some dinner it was time to hit the hay. Lights out in camp is 9:00 and pretty much everyone goes right to sleep as many of us like to hit the route when it opens at 6:30 so that means being up by 5:30 to have breakfast and get ready to go.

Day 2 had us headed out of camp on some local walking/biking trails. It was a nice change to the urban scenery of the day before. The route was much less crowded as some people start a litle later. Everyone has to be out of camp before 8 but not everyone leaves as early as we do. As usually happens with groups of more than a couple people, our team split up for most of Day 2. People walk at different rates so you usually end up walking with someone at about your pace. We usually meet up to see how everyone is doing at the pit stops or at lunch. I felt bad for our new walker. She had some really bad foot pains Saturday morning and ended up having to take the bus to camp from Lunch so that she could try to recover for Day 3. She was really disappointed about it but we told her not to be. Many of us had been there ourselves including me. I did not complete the walk my first year as I had bad leg pains on Day 2. It does not make it any easier on you when you are there though. It's really disappointing to fund raise and train and not be able to complete everything that you set out to. Day 2 was the longest of the three days. We walked 22.6 miles. That's a pretty good deal of walking. We set out about 6:30 in the morning and got back into camp just before 4:00 in the afternoon. The weather was beautiful again on Day 2 and the community support was outstanding.

Day 3 started just as early as the rest even though the route did not open until 7:00. That's because on Day 3 you have to pack up your gear and take down your tent before you start out on the route. Getting all that stuff back into your luggage is not always as easy as you would think. Often our pace is a little slower on Day 3 as well. The weather was a non-factor all weekend as it was awesome again on Sunday. We started out walking together again but ended up in three differnt groups today. We had fast, medium, and slow walkers. None of that matters as long as you are walking. Our new walker was able to make it through Day 3 at a reduced pace but she can say she finished. We always tell walkers that if you have to miss part of the walk, the most important thing is to be able to cross the finish line and walk into Closing. I am glad that as a team we were able to walk most of the way with other members of the team that had a similar pace. I sometimes feel bad for other walkers that are not part of a team and are walking by themselves. You are never really walking by yourself during the 3-Day as it is an outstanding community that supports each other well. Solo walkers are often asked how they are doing by others and more than once this weekend I walked by myself for a time and had some really good conversations with others doing the same. By the time we got to lunch on Day 3 I was slowing down myself a bit. I had blisters developing under both big toes and pain in the my left shin. We didn't spend much time at lunch as we really wanted to get going. The walk from lunch into the city was really nice. The trails that they had us on were very scenic. There was some grumbling as much of the afternoon was uphill and that is a little more of an effort at this point. I was pretty happy with myself at this point though. After walking the last two years in San Diego, I really didn't have any problems with any of the hills in the Twin Cities. At least my body is used to those now. It was a relief to finally get to the Capital and get into closing. There are times during each weekend that you may be hurting and don't feel like walking but once you make it past lunch on Day 3 and especially after you leave the last pit stop before holding, you just can't stop. It's amazing to arrive and have all these people waiting there you welcome you. The reality that you are really finished hits you when they scan your credential for the last time and you are off the route. Closing is just a formality. I didn't have as much time to wait this year as once I got to holding, I had to get back to our pre-walk hotel to get my car so that we could head home right after closing. This actually worked out pretty good and I have to say a BIG Thank You to my cousin Mark who lives in the Twin Cities. He picked me up at holding and took me back to get my car. This saved my team about an hour in travel time and allowed us to get back home at a fairly reasonable hour. Thanks again Mark.

Once I had my car I went back to join the rest of the team for closing. They did things a little differently in each City and I was curious how the Twin Cities would handle it. We had an awesome backdrop of the State Capital for Closing. It takes a little time to assemble for closing. First we have to get all of the familes and friends out of holding and over to closing. Then they line us up to process into closing together. It's kind of ordered Chaos. The walkers are the first ones into closing and are the largest group. I think I mentioned it earlier but we had about 2100 walkers in the Twin Cities this weekend. That's a pretty good group. Once the walkers have mad it into Closing then comes the Crew. It's fitting that the walkers are there to help greet the Crew as they are outstanding. The members of the crew doing everything to support the walkers and they are all volunteers. They are up before the walkers and are in bed after the walkers. The crew really makes the event and I can't stress enough how much we appreciate them. Finally the last group that comes into Closing is the Survivors. It is traditiional for the walkers to hold one of their walking shoes up in tribute to the Survivors as they comes into Closing. Closing is just a way to cap off the weekend. A reminder of why we were there and what the community has accomplished. With the support of all of our sponsors, the Twin Cities raised $5.3 Million this weekend. That money will help to continue the figth against Breast Cancer. It will be used to fund research, to aid in education and prevention. Closing is also kind of a sad time since the weekend is over. The 3-Day is such a positive weekend that you don't want it to be over. It would be great if people could be that positive and caring for others all the time. All we can do is try to bring a little of that spirit into our day to day lives.

After closing it was time to get our gear and head home. We were all tired and sore and sitting and were not looking forward to that 5 hour drive back to our homes. It actually went by faster than I expected. It was quiet at times but funny at others. Our team had a great weekend. Now I am on to making plans for next year. I hope to be able to see some members of my team wherever we decide to walk. So far it is looking like it wil be San Francisco. It's always fun to see a new city in a different way. Thanks again to everyone that supported me in getting to this weekend. God Bless.

Day 1 Recap

Today ended up being a pretty good day. We ended getting out a little late but the weather was good. We didn't have any rain and it wasn't too hot. We walked through Downtown Minneapolis and along the chain of lakes. There was one stretch in the afternoon that we walked uphill and it seemed like it took forever to get to the pit. After walking 20 miles they bussed us to camp. No blisters so far. Tomorrow is 22 miles

It's Finally Here

The 3-Day weekend that I have been fundraising and training for is finally here. I got up at 6 this morning to finish packing and get on the road early. I drove to the Twin Cities and picked up 4 teammates on the way. Three of the four teammates that I picked up are repeat walkers that I have walked with before. We have one first time walker joining us this year. We had a good ride up where we got to catch up and reminisce about past walks. We had two more members of our team fly in and we met them at the hotel. After relaxing for a little while we had a good dinner at a sports bar and then headed back to the hotel to rest and get ready for tomorrow morning. We are still waiting to find out if the final member of our team was able to make it out of Baltimore to join us. My alarms are set to start waking me up at 4:30 tomorrow morning. We need to be on the bus at 5:30 and will be walking by shortly after 7. Looking forward to another positive weekend where everyone shares a common goal. A World Without Breast Cancer. I will go beyond that and say I dream of a World without any type of cancer. I have known too many good people that have had their lives cut short by this disease. God Bless all of the people touched by this horrible disease. We will keep fighting for you.

Back to Walking

I have been very busy with activities with the kids and work and have not been out walking much lately. With the Twin Cities 3 Day coming up in just a couple weeks I need to put some more miles on soon. No activities with the kids tonight and the heat has subsided so I should be able to get a nice easy walk of 10 miles or so in today. I can't wait to get out this afternoon as I really do miss walking. It's very relaxing to get out there and walk for a couple hours. I will be leaving for the Twin Cities 3 Day two weeks from tomorrow.

My Route for today http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=4691337

 

Disappointed in the Catholic Church Leadership

I saw an article in the news this morning that discussed how the Vatican had recalled it's ambassador to Ireland recently after it had received criticism of it's handling of sexual abuse claims in Ireland. This is very disappointing. I know that the majority of the Clergy of the Catholic Church are dedicated and faithful to their vows. This kind of behavior by the leadership of the Church does not help with the problems that have been plaguing the Church for years. They have to get over this perception of protecting the reputation of the Church and worry about protecting the people and helping victims. The victims of abuse have to be more important than any reputation.

Part of the article discusses a confidential letter written to the Irish Bishops from a representative of the Vatican. In that letter they discuss how they are concerned that the policy of mandatory reporting of abuse allegations to authorities may conflict with Canon Law. I am sorry but I have to disagree with the person that wrote that letter. When a member of the Clergy abuses someone they are committing a criminal act and they should be treated as such. The church can deal with them after they get out of jail if they ever do.

AYOP Recap

Well we got home from AYOP today and it was good to get home. The individual events for the girls were not as important as their Flag Corps team event so the last couple of days was not quite as exciting or stressful as Tuesday was. They are still disappointed with the outcome and that they are not going to the World competition but they are dealing with it okay. The team did a great job and they have nothing to be ashamed of.

One of the things I really like about our Corps is how everyone gets along together. All of the kids had a great time preparing for the competition and had a lot of fun being together for this week. It's a little different for them to be together for all that time and not going home from practice at night. I also appreciate how the families get along as well. I really appreciate all the help that I got from the Corps Moms and older girls in getting my daughters ready for competition since my wife could not make the trip. You are all awesome. Now it's time to wind down and start planning for next year. We will be back.

Blog Categories: 

Personal

AYOP Day 1 and 2

The first two days of AYOP are done and I am exahusted. Monday saw us at Notre Dame at 8:00 for the start of the dance/twirl team competition. My daughters were in two of the three events that our corps had entered. The girls on the teams did a really nice job but came up a little bit short and did not place. The competition is stiff here and they placed 11th out of 30 in one event and 15th out of 30 in their other. After they were done competing we headed over to our practice facility to finish preparing for the Flag Corp and Half Time show events for Tuesday. I would like to thank New Creation Fellowship for allowing our team to practice in their gym. The kids were able to practice out of the sun and heat and we had excellent practice. After practice it was time for the team to exchange good lucks before heading to bed early since Tuesday was a big day.

We were up at 5:00 this morning to get everything ready to be at Notre Dame by 7:00 to prepare for the Beatles Flag Corps routine. The kids worked so hard on this routine. The performance went very well and it was torture having to wait for results all day. We were actually speachless when they announced the results and we came in second and would not quaify to travel as part of Team USA next spring. I felt so bad for all the kids. They had spent so many hours in preparing and went and had a good show. I don't understand how we did not win. I don't understand how five of six judges can score had our team either ahead or within a half point and then once judge scores our team as down by 3.5 points. We ended up losing by a mere 6/10 of a point. I would like to thank the Modernettes for helping our Corps make some noise during the competition. We are a small group and don't have as many bodies along to support our group. It was a pleasure returning the favor and watching you compete.

Ready for AYOP

It was a long hot day and the kids worked their butts off this afternoon. Competition starts tomorrow for the twirl teams. The big day for the Corp is Tuesday. That is the day the Senior group will perform their Beatles routine and we will see if all of the time they have invested will pay off. i really hope it does. I have been watching them perfect the routine and I could not be more impressed with the group and how they really work as a team. I am amazed at the progress my daughters have made since they started this routine. The kids are having a blast and it's great that they all get along so well. Will have to post some results tomorrow.

In case you are wondering, AYOP stands for America's Youth on Parade and it is a national baton and flag corps competition. This is a huge year since it is a world qualifying year and the top groups will compete in Switzerland next April.

 

Parade Candy

I am getting to the point that I agree with some of the parades that do not allow groups to throw candy during the parade. I know that kids like to get candy at parades but it's gotten to the point at some of the local parades that it's ridiculous. Kids and their parents both run into the middle of the street for a piece of candy acting like they have never had any before. The kids walk out to the parade participants demanding candy. Some marching units can barely get through the parade route because the kids are so far into the street chasing candy. Don't the parents teach their kids any manners?

 

Back to Lifest

After missing last year for the first time in 5 years, it was great to get back to Lifest today even if it was just for part of the night. Lifest is a Christian Music festival held every summer in Oshkosh, WI that is a very positive environment. It is 5 days of music, fellowship, and praise. It's the kind of place where you can go and put your chairs out at the grandstand early in the day and come back hours later and they are still there and noe has messed with them because people respect each other and have common values. The music varies from praise to hip hop to heavy metal but they all have one theme in common. They all have some message about faith in our savior Jesus Chris. It's a place that I love to take my daughters because it is a positive influence on their lives and we can all do with more of that. I already bought my tickets for next year and even if it is for just one day again, we will be back.

The attached picture is Sunset over the Lifest grounds. How beautiful is that?

Thank You - Ready to Walk

I would like to take a moment to thank everyone that has donated to my walk this year. This is my fifth year walking in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure and each year my friends, family, and co-workers have supported this fight to end Breast Cancer. I was a little worried about trying to raise the minumum my first year but all of you came through and have each year since then. I am so blessed to have such great support. Some have given every year and others have given at different times but everyone has contributed to help in this fight. As I have said in the past, I really believe that if we can cure one type of Cancer, we can't be far away from curing them all. This is a fight against all of the different types of Cancers that has taken too many of our loved ones from us too soon. Now that I have reached my goal for this year, the only thing left for me to do is finish training so that I can walk in honor of all of you that have made this possible. Thank you so much for your help.

God Bless.

Greg

Good Read - Empire of Man Series

I just got done reading the Empire of Man series by David Weber and John Ringo. It's a 4 book series that has a lot of action and some very interesting characters. Once I got into the story I didn't want to put it down. It's Sci-Fi but for the most part it is not set in space as so many Sci-Fi stories. It's also part of the Sci-Fi military genre that I have been reading and have found to be very interesting. The books are excellent reads. The only bad thing I have to say about the series is that I think they left the readers hanging with the last book. There are too many loose ends that need to be tied up. I really liked the chracters and their development and was kind of bummed that I don't get to see what happens to them. Please guys, give us more to let us see how things end up.

March Up Country is the first book in the series. Check it out if you like Sci-Fi

 

Back to Drupal 6

I had upgraded my blog from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7 and most things were working there. I had planned to just deal with some diminished functionality for now but after a couple weeks decided I couldn't. The biggest issues for me was the lack of a functioning blogapi and the twitter module. I use them both on my site. I use blogapi so that I can compose blog posts from my Mac using an external editor. I also like to add things to my blog using iblogger on my iphone. I could not get either working with Drupal 7 yet. I also use the twitter module to post things from my blog to twitter and that feeds into facebook. As I am training for the 3-Day I use both of those tools quite a bit so I guess I won't look at upgrading to Drupal 7 again until after my walk in August. I really wish I could have kept the blog on Drupal 7 because I really like the new interface and usability features.

Website Updates

Well I finally spent some time getting my website updated. When I updated my blog from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7 I lost some functionality and now most of it is back. I wanted to get things back to where I wanted them so that I was ready to post training blogs as I begin my training for the Twin Cities 3 Day in August. I like to post entries when train so that my donors know that I am working to get ready for the walk. In addition to adding a content type that lets me track my miles of walking, I can actually track my walk maps this year as well. I am adding a little each time I have time to work on the website.

Drupalcon Chicago Day 2

It was another exciting day at Drupalcon Chicago. Went to a bunch of sessions and birds of a feather meetings and learned a lot. Got to meet some more people today that I recognized from the Drupal Community and it's cool to be able to put a face with a name or twitter name. I have so many tools and modules that I want to check out. That will keep me busy for some time. Also I have heard a bunch of ways to approach development and testing that I need to look into. Looking back at sites that I started a year or more ago, I made some many decissions that were based on the old html way of doing things. One of my favorite sessions today was actually a talk on joke modules and their place in the Drupal Community. It was very interesting and I had never heard of most of them. Also got to spend some time with a bunch of Church web developers looking at some cool things that Bob Christenson of MustardSeedMedia has been working on.

I can't wait to get home and start working on a new site.

 

Drupalcon Chicago Day 1

Well the first day of Drupalcon Chicago is over and it has been a pretty good day. The keynote by Dries was interesting. Some recognition for the people that have put so much work into Drupal 7 and then onto how they plan to make Drupal 8 even better. Had some good sessions today. Got some good tips on a couple of tools to use for theming. Attended a Birds of a Feather on theming and actually was able to contribute to the discussion and help some people who knew less than me get a handle on where to start.

I attended a session on best practices for having separate Dev/Test/Production environments but it was way over my needs. As the only person working on the websites I manage, my environment is just Dev/Prod with Dev being my Mac and prod being my VPS at Future Hosting. I did again hear good things about Drush and I have to check that out.

The Drupal opening night party at the Field Museum was awesome. I don't know that I have ever seen that many web geeks in one place before. The party was very well organized and attended. After a little food and drink I took to wandering through the museum and actually met a number of people that I had interacted with only in forums and twitter before. It was very cool to meet Micah, Shrop, and Bob Christenson of Geeks and God fame. I have listened to those podcast for years now and learned much about drupal and Church websites from them. I even ran into a Drupal VIP and saw Webchick sitting at the next table at dinner. So far this has been an awesome conference and I am realy glad I came.

Time for some rest to get ready for Day 2.

 

Looking forward to Drupalcon

Next week I will be heading to Chicago for a couple days to attend Drupalcon. I am really looking forward to it. Drupal is an open source content management system that I use for my blog as well as my Church website. It's a very powerful system and even after a couple years of using it, I am still pretty much a novice. Drupalcon will allow me to pick up some more knowledge on what the best way to use this system is. It will also allow me to meet a bunch of other people working with the same software and see what kind of tips and issues they have. It should be really interesting. It's also nice that working with Drupal gives me something that is still technical but not work related to exercise my mind. I like learning but I don't like concentrating everything on one subject all the time.

I'll Never Get Use To It

I just got back from singing at a Funeral at Church and was thinking a bit. I have been singing at Funerals as part of a Choir or a Cantor for more than 25 years now. The Funerals for family members or friends are the hardest and that is understandable. I have some personal connection with that person and feel loss as everyone else at the Funeral does. Over the years though, there have been a number of Funerals that I have sung at where I did not have that personal connection. I did not really know the person so I don't feel a sense of personal loss. I find that even at those Funerals, there are times when I have trouble singing because I feel sad. It's not a personal loss that I am feeling but I feel for the pain that the family is feeling. The Funeral that I sang at tonight was not someone that I knew personally but right at the beginning of the Funeral I could feel the pain of the Family as the wife and young daughter of the deceased placed the Funeral Pall over the casket. I was glad that this was a well attended Funeral as it does help when you see that the Family has a lot of support. There is nothing that feels worse than going to a Funeral where there is hardly anyone there to share the pain with the Family. I am glad that our Parish has many members that reach out to help Families in times like this.

 

After the Storm

Just a couple of pictures to show what it looked like during out storm Tuesday night into Wednesday. The first one was taken while driving my wife to work. This was actually one of the times when it was not too bad. There were many times during the trip where the whiteout conditions were so bad you could not see 5 feet in front of you. The wind was gusting to 40-50 mph. The second picture is what it looked like early Wednesday morning as the storm was subsiding. You can see the snow drifted pretty good in places. The conditions at times during the night were such that I could not see the mailbox at all. I have never seen a snow storm quite this bad.

My Drupal 7 Surprise

I upgraded my blog to Drupal 7 this weekend and for the most part I am pretty happy with the results so far. I had to disable my twitter functionality for now since that module is not Drupal 7 ready yet. I should have reviewed the release notes a little closer though since I did miss one important issue. Drupal 7 removed the blogapi functionality from core and the contrib module is not ready yet so I can use my Ecto client on my Mac or my iblogger client on my iPhone to update my blog. For now the only way I can post is to use the web interface. Hopefully that functionality will be back available in the next couple months.

 

Back to Drupal 6

I am strongly considering moving my site back to Drupal 6. I have been working for a couple days with my blog in Drupal 7 and have found that working in Drupal 7 is very slow. Working inside of Drupal 7 has actually been painful it is so slow at times. I am going to do a little more research but think I might go ahead and roll this back to Drupal 6 and regain all my functionality and some speed back.

 

Getting Ready for 2011

The Twin Cities 3 Day is only 200 days away and it's time to start getting ready. I ordered a new pair of shoes so this year I will have two pairs of my New Balance 1200's and won't have to rely on my old keens as a backup in case of rain. I have also decided that 2010 was the last year for my waist pack and water bottles. I am going to try walking with a Camel Back backpack this year instead. I am looking forward to the weather getting nicer so I can get out and walk again. For the time being it's just going to be working out in the gym and doing some walking on the treadmill. I sent out my first fund raising leter today and I am looking at some other fund raising activities for this year to get ready for next year. Next year my daughter will be 16 and wants to walk with me so we will have to raise twice as much.

 

Drupal Users Group

I have been working with Drupal for several years now and I am constantly learning more about this CMS. A couple months ago I decided to attend a meeting of my local Drupal Users group to see if I could learn more and maybe I could share something with others as well. The Drupal 414 group is fairly small but the meetings have been interesting and I think there is potential for the group to grow. I am finding the meetings helpful and am starting to get more involved. It's all a matter of time. There is at least one other web group in Milwaukee that I would like to join but they meet on Wednesday when I can't make it. Maybe I can in the future. In the mean time, if you are in Milwaukee and interested in Drupal, join us at a meeting on the Third Thursday of the Month.