Just a short blog post to let our friends, family, customers and visitors know that our family and business are safe from the reported floods in Tewkesbury and surrounding areas.

The above photo (Source: BBC) is less than a mile down the same road that the office is on. Our office is high on a hill over looking a valley which is flooded, and the other side of the hill is the river severn and river avon (If you watch the Sky/BBC News thats the area you will see).

Trevena and baby Lela are leaving for Jersey tomorrow, as we have heard that there will be no clean tap water in Tewkesbury as of tonight. Having a baby puts that in perspective. The cable that carries internet and phone services to our office is pictured above, look hard, its under that car in the middle, yes, under that 4ft of water!! At the moment we have both phone and internet although that may or may not continue.

In emergencies only you can contact Phil on +44 774 0188284

There is a lot of news coverage on the floods in our area - see the following sites:

Video of flooding
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/6909754.stm

The question was asked today about my history with Mambo/Joomla.

Here is my reply in the Joomla Forum ::

My online history (paraphrased)

- I was in depression and found Mambo 1.0.13 which had just been released by Miro as GPL by Accident

- I and a few others, Andrew Eddie, Emie Sakic, Brian T. Robert all founded, wrote and released Mambo 4.5, 4.5a, 4.5b, 4.5.1a/b/c 4.5.2

- BEFORE Mambo 4.5 was released I launched the first ever commercial component for Mambo 4.5

- I am personally responsible for many core features of Mambo/Joomla 1.0.x including Frontpage ordering (Ask andrew how many nights that took him to code!) PDF generation, Global Checkin (part) and a few other things…

- MAMBOTS WERE CREATED FOR ME! In order to SELL ComboMAX (A commenting component) I needed to put the comment form at the bottom of a content area - in talks with Andrew Eddie the whole concept of Mambot was designed TO SUPPORT THE COMMERCIAL COMPONENT ComboMAX (Then selling for GBP£2.00 a copy) - The whole concept of Triggers/Mambots/Plugins was developed from there

- I lost my job though another bout of depression so became a Full time developer of Mambo 4.5.2

- Miro came back on the scene and I publically predicted trouble and resigned from Mambo core team way before trouble came in a different way.  By then I had built 8 commercial components and had established a UK Limited Company to work 100% of my time on Mambo/Joomla related development.

- Today I run a very successful company with employees, a dedicated out of town office and drive a jaguar car.  All we do is write quaility software components for Joomla, provide support and commercial consultancy on the Joomla platform.

- We/I am quite vocal and challenge decisions made by the core Joomla team when I disagree with them - thats one of the reasons I left the core team.  I am driven by integrity.

- I often get told to not forget where I came from, meaning not to forget whose foundation now pays my bills, well I was part of the foundation that set mambo in flight and I am proud of it.

- Like me or hate me - i was here way before everyone in this forum (apart from about 5 people) and I will be here for many years to come.  I have seen people come and go from this project many times - only those with integrity stick around.

- I am married to Trevena, the perfect wife (in training) with a 5 month old daughter called Lela-Mintaka

- I am addicted to coffee!

Its been 7 years since the start, 5 years since I first sold the FIRST EVER commercial component for Mambo … a lot has happened since then…

Its not often that I take time off on purpose - however this weekend I am am.  I will not be online, answering emails or support queries from now until office hours on Monday morning.

Have a great weekend! - I’m busy at Church all weekend!

Thanks for all the kind comments and emails during the last few weeks.  Trevena and I appreciate it.

I will be returning to the office tomorrow and will be working full time on catching up with support and emails for the rest of the week.  Following that, early next week we will be aiming for a release of Joomla Tags (http://www.joomla-tags.com/) - We will be very excited to see this released!

So watch this space for more announcements over the next week!

Dear All.

My wife’s grandmother has just passed away at the age of 102.  We are leaving now (right now) to travel back to Jersey C.I. to be with her family.

The release of the Tags Component will be delayed.

You can still purchase from this site - all the deliveries are automated - We have also reduced all prices to only GBP20.00 until we come back.

Offline now until further notice.  Chris is in the office if needed in an emergency.

Dear All.

Just when we were all having fun with Tags…

Trevena (My Wife) has a 102 year old grandmother is very ill on the island of Jersey. We need to get there as soon as possible.  Leaving now to catch the morning ferry from Poole !!!

Offline until further notice…

Thanks for your understanding… and prayers…

Phil

Over the next few days we will be running some auctions of things around the office and home that we no longer require. This is going to help fund our family holiday to New York this year and free up some space in the office

At the moment we have several auctions running (and even 3 things already sold) the best auction is for my treasured prestige Jaguar XJ8 Sport Car, a real bargain at only £9,999 !

The auctions will be a mix of home items, and technology that has been around our office and is not being used. You are sure to get a bargain, Like this action, for a Vodafone QUAD BAND 3G PCMCIA card - instant broadband from any laptop over the mobile phone signals!

We will be adding new items daily!!

Take a look, if you like what you see bid on the items!

Not many people know that after leaving school, I trained with, and worked for, P&O Nedlloyd as a Navigational Officer on container ships. The picture above is from the BBC News website and features a ship just like the ones I used to navigate at sea. Having had an engine turbo charger explode on my first ever trip to sea on a container ship, leaving us drifting in the English channel a few miles from where this ship was stricken in high winds, this is all too very real a memory.

I shudder every time I see the photos. I can smell the engine, the heavy fuel oil, the salty brine, the rust stains, it is all so very real still even after a few years. Seeing the ship above on its side is a reminder that nature still rules, and the sea is still something to be feared!

I can see still very clear, the 40 and 20 foot containers, and the small metal lashings that hold them down to the deck, seeing the photos of the stricken ship brings back floods of memories from around the world, from around my head.

Thank God all the crew are safe, thank God I was not on this ship.