nbluto
Bio
My Drupal Life: I have been working in Drupal for about a year and a half now. I was introduced to Drupal on a team website rebuild with my church . The team said, "We are going to use Drupal for the church's website rebuild." I had no idea what Drupal was, but of course I wasn't going to say that and look foolish, so I agreed with the team and immediately set to work catching myself up to what I thought the guys on the team already knew about this Drupal thing. In the process I fell in love with Drupal in every way possible even though I broke it a few times. (I still break it once in a while.)
My next major project was my kid's Cub Scout website. I had been the webmaster for the pack for about a year at this point and had just redone the old site with a new tableless CSS style. I re-did the site in Drupal and in the process I was able to use more modules than I could with the church site because the scout site was more interactive and social. I experimented with module like Organic Groups, CCK, Calendar, Views, and Notifications and Messaging.
My husband was watching me do all this and asked if I would rebuild his union's website. I built Torrance Police Officer's Association in 2007 and he wanted a Drupal site. Of course I did. I was able to have their forums, user administration, blogs, messaging, twitter, and more. The site has a public side for citizen information and a private site for union members only. In this time of economic uncertainty, the site has been a great asset to rally the membership to organize to keep their jobs and benefits.
My husband and I have recently formed Intrinsic Web Designs LLC for the purpose of building websites for police officer's associations. We are bringing the formula that was successful for the Torrance Police Officer's Association to other associations around the country.
Besides Drupal: I served in the Vermont Air National Guard as a 2T151 (driver) for 6 years. I went to college at the University of Vermont and graduated with a BS in education in 2000. I have worked as a teacher in preschool - 2nd grade. I am self taught in Drupal, HTML, CSS, and learning PHP (honestly still learning everything!) I have been working in web design since 2004. I am a writer, my book is "The Preschooler's Guide to Los Angeles and Orange Counties" written under my maiden name Nicole Adan which is out of print but can be downloaded free online. I have 3 children ages 9, 2, and 5 months. I am a native Californian, and I spent time in Wilmington and Santa Paula growing up.
So now you know my life story (mostly). Come talk to me at Drupal Camp!
Nicole Bluto