Dear Rick, Leslie, Sue ... and many others,

I thought long and hard about sending each one of you a personal message, but after a weekend of thought, I decided to post the message here for everyone to read.

As you know and might remember (I might be wrong), I was and am one of the very early adopters of pMachine/Expression Engine. Yes, I had my doubts (for about 20 minutes, as far as I recall) about paying for an EE upgrade that time (silly me), but I feel a close relationship with Expression Engine, this forum and all the people in it ... although I’ve been a stranger (but regular reader) all this time.

Why am I writing this?

I’ve decided to abandon Expression Engine ... for now.

Let me explain.

As you three - and some of the others - might know, I’ve been plagued by health issues that have taken a heavy toll on my eyesight (and I’m extremely grateful for the well-wishes I received from you and many others). I have managed to halt the irreversible damages to my eyes (a shaky truce, at best), but today I need a magnifying glass to read a bit of code.

Because I’m a member of that crowd that I would call the “learning-by-doing-and-tweaking” users (and I do believe we are in a healthy majority), I reached the limit of my capabilities before I had even delved into 1/100th of EE’s capabilities.

The reason is simple: I just couldn’t successfully concentrate on endless lines of code anymore in order to put into motion a new version of my site, which I designed much more than one year ago. Hell, I tried my damn best, but it just wasn’t good enough. I’m not kidding when I say that after twenty minutes of concentrated code-reading, my eyes would cloud up and be ruined for an entire week.

So, I went with another product that allowed me to skin my site easily, and allowed me to throw in a few plugins to achieve what I wanted to achieve.

Damn, it’s sad ... and I mean that.

Now that I’ve switched (my new site will go live this upcoming weekend), I know that EE is the superior product in every single darn way. I know there’s nothing it can’t do, I know one can tweak the living daylights out of it, I know that one can achieve things that even you guys (and gals) hadn’t even thought of, but to sum it all up, I simply didn’t have the physical ability to do it anymore. A hundred lines of original template code just look like (place single-word expletive here) when viewed through a magnifying glass. In fact, they don’t look like ... anything discernible.

So, I went with what I myself could handle, what my eyes and altogether my physical abilities could manage, and I now have to live with something that is merely OK as opposed to (somewhat) original, satisfying or ... darn, I could think of a trillion other adjectives.

I’ve read everything about the new version of EE coming out soon, and I’m envious of all of the users able to try it all out. And, most importantly, I’m going to stick with EE privately, pay, update and all of that in the hope of one day returning to EE ... right now it just isn’t feasible. For too long I’ve invested time in getting things designed and programmed instead of posting; after all, the most important aspect of a site is the content. In fact, I think I’ve spent much more than a year on it all.

I hope you understood from the tone of this post that - without sounding too melodramatic - this has been a more than difficult decision ... and one that took a looooooong time to make.

As I’m writing this in an editor which magnifies what I’m doing to nearly 220%, I want to leave here with a few simple lines:

@Rick
It’s been a fabulous ride ... and I hope you still give Count Basie a spin now and then. You are and have been a great guy and I, like everyone else, appreciate the dedication and the innovation that has been streaming forth ... continuously.

@Leslie
I keep all my mails and have (literally) a trillion sent by you helping me with this and that, at night, during daytime, while on holidays. I’m eternally grateful!

@Sue
You helped with the most stupid questions anyone could have (plus some more intricate ones). Thanks a million, always!

@EE users:
EE is brilliant software, supported by a fantastic staff.
You guys are lucky.

It’s a pity I can’t reference someone else, but as Arnold Schwarzenegger once said ...
“I’ll be back ...”

Love you guys.

Volkher (deus62)

P.S.: Please remove my (old, outdated and barely breathing) site(s) from your interview/showcase/etc. pages until I return one day.

Kudos!

Volkher,

I think this is the best thing anybody in the community has ever taken the time to say. Its much appreciated. Life is the important thing. Whatever solution lets you live it in a more positive manner, I support that!

Hi Volkher,

First off I have to say that I don’t know you as you well know I don’t but I feel as though you are definitely a person to know. You have written a very personal and touching story here and I am deeply moved by your words.

I am very sorry that this has happened to you and wish you the very best with whatever path you go down. Even though I don’t know you please let me be the first to offer any assistance I can (free of course! ) if there is anything you need.

One of my relatives lost their site not long ago so in a round-about kind of way I know what you are going through. I know exactly how I would feel if I lost my sight (I know yours hasn’t gone that far yet and I really hope it doesn’t) and so anything I can do to help I would be only too pleased to.

All the best with whatever you do and I wish you all the best in your health.

Best wishes,

Mark

Thank you, Leslie.
I knew you’d understand.
*place heart here*

Mark Bowen - 07 April 2008 10:06 AM

Hi Volkher,
[...]I know exactly how I would feel if I lost my sight and so anything I can do to help I would be only too pleased to. [...]
Mark

Mark,

a reaction I’ve come to know and value in these forums.
It’s much appreciated!
I’m still around, and - I hope you can handle it - I’m German.
we’re difficult to keep down ...

Yeah, I’ve kept my (somewhat weird) humor.

Kudos!

And what is wrong with being German? I can handle you being around definitely

I have a lot of very good German friends. My wife and I did a story in Germany about the DRF helicopter units not so long ago. Absolutely brilliant bunch of guys and if ever I was in trouble over there then I wouldn’t want anyone else to help me out.

Please keep us all informed as to how you are doing and even though (to me as I didn’t know you until today) you were a stranger well you’re not now so definitely keep in touch via the forums. I feel honoured to know you.

Best wishes,

Mark

Volker, keeping your eyesight is the most important thing. We support you no matter what program works with your site.

I’ve read everything about the new version of EE coming out soon, and I’m envious of all of the users able to try it all out. And, most importantly, I’m going to stick with EE privately, pay, update and all of that in the hope of one day returning to EE ... right now it just isn’t feasible. For too long I’ve invested time in getting things designed and programmed instead of posting; after all, the most important aspect of a site is the content. In fact, I think I’ve spent much more than a year on it all.

Just get the content in there, we’ll help with pulling it back out when 2.0 gets available.

(Going to my eye doctor today for a checkup, so I can somewhat sympathize.)

Be well, and thanks again for the mention. Your questions were *never* stupid.

Just get the content in there, we’ll help with pulling it back out when 2.0 gets available.

Deal!
Ha!

(Going to my eye doctor today for a checkup, so I can somewhat sympathize.)

Best of luck!

Be well, and thanks again for the mention.

A big *juicy* kiss for you. !
We go way back on this site, don’t we?
Really, thanks for your help at all times.
It’s been great to see you move up in ranks here!
Is there an EE monster medal of merit? I’d have preferred the one in chocolate, had I ever contributed as much as you have. Unfortunately, I was never eligible.
Hope you got one!
In gold.

Volkher

Best of luck to you, Volkher.  I appreciate your support over the years and wish you the best.  Your sites were among the freshest, most stylish implementations of pM and EE, so it was a pleasure to have you as a user. Count Basie lives on my iPod these days, so he’s definitely in the mix!  Take care.

Since I have always known you by your forum name, I will call you deus62. 

First off, nice to see you pop up again.

I too have an eye problem of sorts but not as critical as the conditions you are experiencing.  I get migraines from looking at the screen.  The brightness will at first cause holes in my vision which is then followed by the actual headache.

The way I have been able to fix my problem is by wearing sunglasses while using the computer.  This may not help your problem though because I am not sure it does anything for the strain and the dark glasses probably make text harder to read. 

Are you able to get around the small text problem by using high contrast, large text profiles on your computer? 

Also, you have always had great designs but this might be an opportunity to turn those fresh designs to raise awareness to people with visual problems.  Accessibility is something we try to incorporate into our sites but relatively few people actually experience the problems that accessibility is trying to address.

Have you looked into a audio reader system like JAWS?  Reading all those lines of text has always been a pain for me too, even without visual problems.  I just take it one line and sometimes on character at a time.  Visual problems slow this process down, but the process is still the same.

In any case, take care and thank you for stopping by to give us an update in your world.

Hey Deus, hope all goes well !!!!!
Even though you’ve switched, Don’t be a stranger, stop by and visit and let us know how you’re doing.

Randy (Px)

Rick Ellis - 07 April 2008 12:34 PM

Best of luck to you, Volkher.  I appreciate your support over the years and wish you the best.  Your sites were among the freshest, most stylish implementations of pM and EE, so it was a pleasure to have you as a user. Count Basie lives on my iPod these days, so he’s definitely in the mix!  Take care.

Thanks, Rick!
I’ll still be around and I’m definitely planning on putting another EE site together with version 2. I already have an idea for a small site to test all the new goodies coming my/our way.

Count Basie on an iPod?

Sorry, but that’s sacrilege.

John Fuller - 07 April 2008 08:36 PM

Since I have always known you by your forum name, I will call you deus62. 

[...] In any case, take care and thank you for stopping by to give us an update in your world.

John,

thanks for the kind words.

I have something called Uveitis. You’ll find more gory details around the web, but it basically comes down to this (my “version” of it): “Intermediate uveitis consists of vitritis - inflammatory cells in the vitreous cavity, sometimes with snowbanking, or deposition of inflammatory material on the pars plana.” [Source: Wikipedia)

In short, my condition is an auto-immune one and leads to one problem that can only be taken care of via a high-risk operation: My eye is filled and is filling up with more and more residue (black spots, clouds, or whatever you want to call them) and ... they move. This cannot be fixed with a pair of glasses, although some can lessen the impact. The problem is that one day I can see better and the next day my vision degrades by a large percentage, depending on where the stuff is located at the time.

Because I also have a day job that requires reading and writing all day long (and I’m not about to abandon that job), I need to massively reduce my online time and get things done as quickly as possible.

Although there definitely is a chance of going blind on one or both eyes along the way, my condition is somewhat stable at the moment ... and bearable. You actually get used to this kind of stuff.

I have - preemptively - been reading up on what I could use/may have to use one day and I’m lucky enough to call one of the global experts in the field of research for Uveitis my personal friend. When push comes to shove, I’ll probably go for an operation to see if most of the accumulated residue can be removed.

Until then, I’ll live as I have, do what I’ve always done, get on with my life. I just don’t have the ability anymore to really design and program a site from scratch. That’s what it comes down to, especially if I want to keep things stable. Whenever I used to design, I used to linger around too long, solving every detail and trying to come up with something unique. Those days are now officially over. Besides, I’m still planning on writing lots of content, so it’s just a cosmetic problem, really.

By the way, the current development version of my new site is at development[dot]livingwithmusic[one more dot]com. Feel free to look (don’t with IE6 ... it’s got some minor layout problems).

It sounds like your eye problems (and similar ones) are shared by many as well. I remember Shaun Inman who once wrote about his wife’s(?)/girlfriend’s(?) eye problems that sounded similar and made him strongly argue certain contrast demands that I had defended in some comment. At the time, I was simply not aware (=ignorant) of the problems many people have with black text on a white background, for example. That whole discussion way back when educated me in regard to the myriad of eye problems that are out there.

Best,

Volkher

PXLated - 07 April 2008 09:49 PM

Hey Deus, hope all goes well !!!!!
Even though you’ve switched, Don’t be a stranger, stop by and visit and let us know how you’re doing.

Randy (Px)

I certainly won’t be a stranger.
I’ll be along for the 2.0, 3.0, ... ride.
This stuff is too good to abandon.
Besides, I just love to play with EE. That and a good wine can easily get my motor running, ready to go. 

Remember?  Yep!  I always took much inspiration from your work - and am still grateful for your permission to pretty much duplicate a site design for the church site that got me started here…

Very sorry to hear that your vision issues have continued and worsened - but am also glad to see you posting here again as well.

Best wishes as you continue to find ways to to inspire others…

Wow, I feel like the odd man out.  Besides Mark and Rick I am the only person without a 2002 on my profile.  Did the web even exist in 2002?

Hi John,

Yep the Internet existed WAY back to around 1969 if I’m not mistaken!!

I know what you mean though. Gosh it makes me feel young!!!

Best wishes,

Mark

Michael Boyink - 08 April 2008 06:46 AM

Remember?  Yep!  I always took much inspiration from your work - and am still grateful for your permission to pretty much duplicate a site design for the church site that got me started here…

Gosh, I had completely forgotten about that.

That was ages ago ...

And ... just to test if at least my memory skills are still somewhat reliable ... didn’t we all join before 2002 and got up’ed to that year when the database was, err, streamlined?

I distinctly recall having registered and used pMachine before 2002. When most people here weren’t even born yet. 

But then again, I also wake up at nights convinced that I just failed my maths exam in high school. It usually takes about 2 to 3 minutes to remember that I passed, studied forever ... and have been a teacher for 15 years.

Cheers!

Pretty sure the 02 date is right for me - that was the year I got booted from corporate America and started my business.