When I was 13 years old Monty Python released the movie "The Life of Brian". What a pain! All through my teenage years fans of the movie, and there were a lot in England, would walk up to me and shout " Brian, he's not the messiah he is a very naughty boy". (If you've not seen the movie you really should). Trust me on this after the tenth time it really isn't very funny.
The closing scene of the movie is the song " Always look on the bright side of life!" It's a noble aim and is analogous to the concept of the glass being half full instead of half empty. Always look for the positives instead of concentrating on the negatives.
9 years ago today, on 17th August 2005, I was just one of seventeen brave (or foolhardy) people who announced that they were leaving the very successful Mambo project and starting out on their own. It was a snap decision and truth be told if we had stopped to think about how much work lay ahead of us in the coming months I suspect we might not have been in such a rush. We were greatly helped at the time by Eben Moglen of the Software Freedom Law Centre and I believe we were their first "clients".
I arrived at J & Beyond not in the best of moods. I'd been off work sick for the previous month and to be honest I was tired, run down and a little depressed. There are just times when things become a constant battle of frustration and nothing seems worth the effort and that's exactly where I was. After months of preparation for JAB14 I was no longer interested and was determined that this would be my last JAB and probably my last Joomla event. Mood 0/10
I had convinced my JAB teammates to introduce two new features for 2014 and I was no longer certain that the Make it Happen or J!Factor events would be a success. I didn't see the commitment and support from the community that I felt these two initiatives deserved and as they were intended to be a major focus this year I just felt JAB would fall flat on its face together with any reputation I might have established for being involved in successful events.
