Forum WebDev

I'm new to the LAMP stack and have been working with it professionally now for a little over a month. I'm a junior level programmer still and my foundations are from C++, Java, and .Net(asp.net & C#). I've picked up PHP & MySQL very quickly and work on some pretty heavy object oriented existing applications that were written prior to my employment.
The application I work on is a completely dynamic database driven system..It was built years ago by the owners son that had no coding experience or education and learned as he went. It's surprisingly complex but the code and organization are simply just ugly..There is no way to rebuild the system from scratch with proper patterns and practices because it is too large and the time and money it would take to do so would not be agreed upon.

I feel that I have a good grasp on the language and wonder where I should focus my attention to start learning the more advanced concepts that will improve my coding practices and efficiency. I've thought about learning the MVC pattern in PHP, or picking up one of the many frameworks to get my hands dirty with..Maybe I should be getting acclimated with PEAR or PECL?

What do you guys suggest I should take up next?

Mississippi is hardly alone when it comes to bad forensic science. It now appears that Washington, D.C., may have to retry Angela O'Brien for the 2000 killing of her 2-year-old goddaughter, Brianna Blackmond, after revelations that the prosecution's star forensic witness, a physicist named Saami Shaibani, lied about his credentials in a Wisconsin murder case

I also need some instruction.I tried with Joomla but it not worked properly.