The start of this year has brought my attention to starting a new project to occupy my free time while I continue my search for a new job has begun to manifest itself into a self-teaching exercise.

In an attempt to better familiarize myself with back-end content management systems, I have begun working on an official ‘club’ for a group of Volkswagen enthusiasts and modifiers, such as myself, to connect, interact, and post information about their various cars along with a profile page.

Much like how Facebook brought the social circle of life to the Internet in an intermingled network, “The Wolfsburg Clique,” as the project is called, will bring the social Volkswagen or Audi enthusiast to a centralized location online in a more personal environment than other websites do with expanded forums and limited profile pages.

Currently the front end of the project is giving me a chance to expand my personal knowledge of content management systems, such as Joomla and Drupal. While this maybe ‘cookie-cutter’ applications, they give the project a bit of a head start until I can develop the system I want to showcase.

I’m also taking this opportunity to refresh my skills in front-end web development, including learning about the changes in HTML 5, as well as CSS 3. Learning these new coding practices is important to keep an online community going in order to cater to the latest version of web browsers and other applications in addition to the Web 2.0-movement a few years ago, as well as the current social networking movement.

While “The Wolfsburg Clique” maybe an idea to gather enthusiasts, I hope it will give me the real-world application and skill I need to continue the pursuit of my dreams, as well as my interests: web development, graphic design, photography, and Volkswagens.

I may need a new camera too.