Bolstering the ranks

Hey, the Cube is a little more full again! We welcomed a new web developer, R.J. Steiner, onto the staff last week to replace our recently departed colleague Chad Mazzola, who was the guy who brainstormed the initial implementation of this site. That once again brings the New Media department here up to its full complement of four + intern -- counting myself as a full New Media person, that is, although I'm also a full Editorial person too. It's a bit of an odd slot I inhabit here (is it possible to be a 200% person?), although entirely logical in its way.

Anyway, R.J's arrival is most welcome here. I didn't sit in on his interviews, although I could hear them well enough right behind me, and we could tell immediately that he was seriously into Drupal, our Web software. That's still kind of unusual in the developer community (although we think it'll be the hot platform for this stuff a year or two out), so we were happy to bring him aboard. He'll be working mainly on pioneervalley.com, one of our new sites here -- that's a work in progress that'll focus mainly on entertainment and lifestyle in the Valley, with some forward-looking search at its core. A very basic version of that exists now, but R.J. and ace web developer Chip Kaye will be building that out far more extensively, while also tending to this humble little site.

One of these days, I'll remember my point-and-shoot and give you all a View into the Cube....