Well prepared

There are a lot of things I'm working on right now - really catching up with the web XX stuff is top of the heap but there are other projects I'll comment on as well. I've decided I want to become a phlexpert, meaning, a PHP-FLEX-EXPERT, as far as I can tell I'm the first to coin that meaning of the term, so let me apologize in advance before it replicates ; )
So there is a big tree of knowledge to consider here, PHP, Flex and Expert. Lets start with PHP. So I've finally gotten around to working on this language after being trapped in middle management for many years. It's really good to look at PHP and see the perl roots, the flexibility, the great text and data handling tools, all things that are missing in JTHML, ATG Dynamo's sad client-side language that has kept me feeling crippled for the last while. I have a lot of work to do in PHP, but the community is outstanding so I'm able to answer questions and try things out quickly.
Flex is very approachable and is the most powerful client-side development change I've seen since plug-ins in the browser circa 1995. It suggests an approach for managing client applications as consumers of data services, with a state management engine that clarifies application development. Sorry about the buzz-words (I'll be saying that again) but it's the only way yo say it. What it means is that there is now a good tool for doing the kinds of applications we've been doing at nick.com for a long time. We need this.
Expert means being able to answer hard questions, understanding best practices, and develop ing solutions that are better than what came before. In this case I'm particularly interested in how PHP and Flex can be used together.