Coming Out In the Strangest of Ways

For as long as I can remember, I’ve known that I was gay. Growing up in a conservative Christian family that was very active in the Church, this fact was a constant struggle, something I fought tirelessly and endlessly to disguise. I dated girls occasionally, but never for any extended period of time or with any legitimate interest on my part. Instead, it was simply one component of the elaborate facade I built to “protect” myself and hide my secret.

Growing up in an environment where homosexuality was regularly derided as sinful, as a sure path to damnation, the question of whether or not to keep on living was ever-present. The misery that hiding, that being the unwitting target of jokes and ridicule, that lying to everyone around me brought with it was often so overwhelming that suicide seemed the only solution. If I couldn’t be happy with something I had no choice of being in the first place, what was the point in continuing on?

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Five Reasons Why I Love Developing with WordPress

I’ve been using WordPress for a few years now, and since March, I’ve worked at C. Murray Consulting, where I primarily develop websites on WordPress and BuddyPress. Originally designed for blogging, recent upgrades have transformed WordPress into a full-featured content management system. Thanks largely to its humble roots, WordPress has a number of advantages over its competitors. Below are the top five I’ve identified as both a user and developer:
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The Art of Career Change

In the years since I began high school, I’ve pursued four distinct career paths, each so very different from the last that most people conclude that I’m insane when I list them.

I began high school set on a career in architecture, and I even took numerous courses that taught hand and computer-aided drafting, architecture terminology, and so on. By the beginning of my senior year, however, it was clear that architecture was the wrong career path for me. For one, I despised the tediousness of creating elevations, and I always seemed to struggle with floor plan layout. I would inevitably end up with some odd space that didn’t quite fit into any of the surrounding rooms, forcing me to call upon a classmate to assist me as I reworked the design. At the same time, thankfully, a hobby had developed into a full-time obsession and thus seemed like a logical career path.

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Introducing WordPress 3, Featuring Custom Post Types, A Native Menu Editor, and More

The following first appeared on my employer’s site, cmurrayconsulting.com.

Today’s release of WordPress 3.0 brings some exciting enhancements and new features that strengthen the software’s position in the realm of content management systems. For developers such as us, two sets of features in particular should prove invaluable in implementing WordPress-based solutions for our clients.

First, version 3 expands WordPress beyond the traditional blogging constructs of posts and pages by allowing users to specify custom post types. These custom types can function either like posts, organized linearly, or like pages, having a hierarchical structure. This feature builds on the custom taxonomies introduced in WordPress 2.9, which let users expand the organizational options for content beyond just categories and tags. Now, combining custom post types with custom taxonomies, users have complete control over how content is organized and displayed.

Custom post types don’t just let users segregate press releases from product pages, for example, but also simplify the addition of fields specific to each post type. A product post type could include pricing and availability, whereas a press release could hold media contact information. Following this example, separate taxonomies can be assigned to each, reaffirming a clear organization of content.

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iPhone Coming to Verizon on June 26?

A few weeks ago, I stopped by my local Verizon Wireless store. In the course of conversation, the subject of the iPhone inevitably came up. Rather than the standard “I don’t know” response, the gentleman helping me gave a somewhat cryptic but clear response: “Someone, somewhere, is making an announcement on June 26.” Playing along (albeit a bit taken aback by his forthrightness), I mused that the person making this announcement might be wearing a turtleneck and tight jeans while standing on a starkly-black stage. The Verizon employee nodded affirmatively.

While I understand that rumors appear and disappear regularly on this subject, never before has an employee of Verizon Wireless provided such direct responses when I’ve brought up the iPhone’s availability on the carrier’s network. Some may respond with skepticism founded on doubts that store employees not at a managerial level would have such knowledge, but if the announcement does come on June 26, I can only suspect that Verizon’s preparations for the melee that will ensue include informing its entire staff of its plan for handling the throngs that will turn out for the device. The staff alone needed to process all of those individuals looking to transfer their service from AT&T will likely require a carefully coordinated effort on Verizon’s part.

Come the end of June, I can only hope that this rumor is confirmed as my upgrade eligibility date follows soon thereafter.