The next Train-ee / ExpressionEngine meetup will be in Portland, OR on Monday July 13th starting at 6:30 PM.  It’ll be held at:

McMenamins Kennedy School
5736 N.E. 33rd Ave.
Portland, OR 97211
Google Map
6:30 PM—?

There are a small number of venues within the school—we’ll be in the Boiler Room Bar. 

The meetup is being sponsored by EE friends Solspace and Hambo Development—so come on out and have a beer and some pizza on Mitchell and Steven.

EllisLab will be representing…and rumor has it that a certain former CTO will make a public appearance as well.

All in all it should be a great time - hope to see you there!

See you there!

Nick was another Train-ee Scholarship winner - so all of you in the EE community who sponsored the Southern Fried ExpressionEngine last January can take a little pride in this site launch.  Congrats Nick!

I can’t say it enough - I’m proud to be part of a community where people are able to look past themselves and help others in need.

What a week.  We had perfect Michigan weather with sunny days and temps from 70-80 - which allowed for a lunch outside, and an impromptu night of sailing courtesy of a local friend.  As usual there was a variety of web-related skills and experience represented by the students in the class.  I felt like in spite of that there were still several “lightbulb moments”, either in the fashion of small tips and tricks or from a larger perspective in how EE works so much differently than a page-based approach to building websites.

And yes - we had some stumbles.  I forgot to update the pre-class instructions to indicate that students should have installed EE prior to coming, and I think there are still some places where a bit of re-ordering of the materials would help.  And I need to remember to leave the safety of my up-front “zone” and move around the room more—I’m definitely still a newbie as an instructor!

In spite of those issues I’d still declare the class a success - I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and getting to know those of you who came out.  I continue to be amazed at how EE seems to attract awesome people!

View the Class Flickr stream.

Not only will this be my first trip abroad —but I’ll be leaving my hometown of Holland, MI USA to visit my ancestral homeland.  I’m really curious to see how our local representation of the Dutch culture is similar or different to the actual culture of The Netherlands. 

If you are in that part of the world stop by and say Hello in a language of your choosing.

The church site was purchased by the Okotoks Evangelical Free Church in Okotoks, Alberta, Canada. 

Total monies recieved between the auction proceeds, donations and other fundraising was $1674.00.

Winners of the drawing for promoting the event were:

• Circa1977
• Tast_EE
• KSattler
• CollideMagazine
• Thomas Winterstetter

I’ve had initial conversations with the George - the pastor of the church - and work to move the site over will begin in a couple of weeks (just a better schedule for both of us).

Design-wise this is the first screencast that matches the current look and feel of Train-ee, and a hat tip goes out to Jesse Schutt for the snazzy intro, ending and slide style.

Purchase includes a downloadable .MOV file, text versions of code templates used in the screencast, and PDF versions of the script and slides.

I say “we” because I need your help.

To see a short video I put together, learn more about the project and the different ways you can help head over to the Water from a Website section.