I am super excited about my newest gig, as an Instructor at the Big Nerd Ranch here in Atlanta.  I’ll be teaching a course on Ruby on Rails, a web development framework (and an opinionated development style) that is very near and dear to me.

I was looking back at my previous blog posts on how much I enjoyed teaching and instructing, and it’s clear that I am passionate about sharing knowledge and helping others — and enjoy the challenges of explaining complex concepts in simple, easy-to-understand ways.

The Big Nerd Ranch style of a retreat with intensive, hands-on training has to be the best environment to learn that I’ve come across.  As a former corporate instructor, having taught enterprise-grade software products at large Fortune-x00 companies, I know from experience that there are about a billion distractions to “students” on-site (e-mail, meetings, support, phone calls, etc.) that detract from the learning experience, and in some cases can disrupt the entire learning process.  I’m excited to be a part of a great team and concept.

p.s. we blogged it on CleanAir.

We take a momentary break from all the shameless self-promotion, to bring you this special update.

Things are going pretty well for me right now. I was just remarking to my beautiful, talented, and brilliant wife, Jodi Bell-Quinn, about how really good things are in general for us.

To be completely honest, Jodi Bell-Quinn and I are flat broke, and loving it. We immediately plonked down a big chunk of change a few days after our wedding on an amazing loft condo in midtown Atlanta where we’ve been sinking some more change into some pretty hefty renovations (warranting another blog post). Couple that with the fact that Jodi Bell-Quinn (do I have to buy her a new domain now) is now back in school getting her Masters in Architecture, and technically “retired” as she and Wes put it — but still working all the time. And, the fact that I’ve dropped down my full-time client’s hours considerably to focus on other stuff, well, “we ain’t got no money!”

Man, has it been fun, though. We’ve become kings of coupons, and leftover champions. I’ve even stopped showering and shaving just to cut down on the water bill (hah, that’s my excuse). I actually can’t say that it’s made me feel any less secure, or less happy. To put it quite cheesily: it’s hard to be broke when your life is so rich.

Heck, even my friends are doing well, some of ‘em even getting engaged without even telling everyone (no links there, but I could)!

Even little Jameson is doing quite well. I guess all those Dog Whisperer episodes that I’ve been getting really into have started to pay off.