Pet dragon. For dinosaurs you can have any lizard.

I have been trying to build a forum recently, but found phpbb really ugly and difficult to customize (even changing the logo was oddly difficult). I know about discourse but I would prefer a PHP based solution I can host in one of my current servers.

Are there any better solutions?

I have had success with a monthly reminder in my google calendar. Sometimes I skip it, but I have been updating and keeping everything nice and tidy much more frequent than I used to!