Drupal Makes Dreams Come True

One of my favorite quotes from DrupalCon Boston '08 was Leslie Hawthorne's, "Drupal makes sandwiches happen." The quote I think describes just how amazing the Drupal community really is -- people going out of their way to help other people. The past few weeks have been big weeks for me in large part due to my involvement in the Drupal community. Ever since Steve and I first spoke about Druplash at DrupalCampWI in January we have been trying our best to give back to the community by organizing and speaking at more events. This led to speaking at DrupalCon '08 about our research in Drupal-powered Flash and Flex applications. While we were in Boston, I met Claudio Luis Vera, a partner at Studio:Module, a firm working with the MIT Media Lab on a new Drupal-powered website. Claudio invited Steve and I to come with him to MIT to present some of our research, which we happily agreed to do -- because it got us a quick tour of the Media Lab which we've both dreamed about seeing.

Who would have guessed that this chance meeting at DrupalCon would start the ball rolling on some major life changes for me. Since DrupalCon, Steve and I have continued to do more work in the Drupal + Flash arena and started getting interested in exploring ways to integrate cellphones (another passion of ours) with Drupal. We also continued to give back to the community by organizing and speaking at Drupal BootCamp events -- one in March at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and then one just a few weeks ago here at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. Steve worked with the Multimedia Program to produce an amazing event which combined SMS, custom iPhone development, Drupal, live event photography, and projected Flash pieces for the Campaign for a Bradley Renaissance.

A few days ago, Steve and I came across a listing for a position at MIT doing some integration of SMS with Drupal in the Mobile Experience Laboratory. I applied for the position and the rest has been a blur. After the whirlwind passed, I find myself in a bit of shock as I accept an offer to join the MIT Media Experience Laboratory. A dream come true, I will be leaving my position at The Iona Group in just a few short weeks to move to the Boston area to begin working on some really intriguing projects combining SMS, Drupal, and Flash to try to make the world a better, safer, and more sustainable place.

It will be really hard to move away from my amazing co-workers and mentors, Chad Udell, Mark Tovey, Matt Forcum, Brett Noe, and Jim Ferolo, but my wife and I are super excited to be moving to Boston and starting this new chapter of our lives. As an aside, if anyone knows of some great (affordable) apartments in the Cambridge/Boston area that are available now, please get in touch!