First post to LA Drupal

Greetings from local newbs! My wife and I have been working with Drupal for just a couple months and we really like it. In planning a new site and new commercial offering we decided to start with D6 and grow with patches and modules as they become available. We reviewed many other CMS offerings but decided to make D6 a part of our daily life. Drupal has it's frustrating moments. In many ways it's a black box where you don't know where to go next. It's sometimes tough to guess which menu (if any) a module will use for configuration or for users to add new content. What can we expect from the blocks we add - and how do we know something isn't working right unless we just spend time with it and come to the realization that "hey, that doesn't look right, it's time to see if anyone reported that as a bug." That's when we start spending a lot of time at Drupal.org, gathering tons of links to nodes with information, looking for sites with tips, recognizing others with similar approaches and issues ... and finding groups like LADrupal.org....

So here we are, and way out in Mission Viejo (a hop away from Lake Forest, Irvine, Dana Point, Newport Beach) and I'm thinking "L.A."?!?! Aw man, isn't there anyone just a little closer? ;) OK OK, can't have everything. We're planning to make the trek to the May meeting - and real happy that these are monthly gatherings rather than once a year in Boston, Minnesota, or somewhere in Europe.

I dunno if anyone is interested but I can do a post here once in a while on the new user experience (while we still have that perspective) and tips on bits of insight we find helpful. One of the first things I'd like to comment on involves some issues with this site - but it's hardly fair to slap anyone around right after shaking their hand, so I guess that will have to wait a couple days. LOL