Finally, after lo these many years I’m finally going to camp. As a kid our family couldn’t afford to send me or my brother to camp. Awwww. Sad, right? So, when I saw that WordPress was holding WordCamp just across the Bay and for the low, low price of only $20, I jumped on that shit.
I was all excited when I told my So-Call Friend (SCF):
LB: Hey! I just signed up for WordCamp.
SCF: Oh, is that a writer’s workshop? You could really use some work in that area.
LB: Gee, thanks. No, it’s a blogger’s conference.
SCF: Oh. OK. Why?
LB: Because I blog. I want to get some tips on being a better blogger.
SCF: (pulling up my most recent post). Oh look, a picture of your cat. You blog about cats. You are a cat blogger . . . geez, what are you feeding him?
LB: I’m not just a cat blogger. I . . .
SCF: . . . also write about your rabbit. Sorry, I forgot.
LB: Yeah, and your point is? Maybe I want to be the best damn cat and rabbit blogger there is!
SCF: Knock yourself out . . . seriously, is that really a cat?
So tomorrow at the crack o’ dawn, I’m going to jump into the deep end of the blogger’s pool. Gee, I wonder if we get to make gimp keychains?
Stumbling along the path 
I am very jealous. Had I that opportunity I would jump on that shit, too!! I would love to attend a conference like that. But alas, I live in the middle of no where. Such is my plight.
Interview Request
Hello Dear and Respected,
I hope you are fine and carrying on the great work you have been doing for the Internet surfers. I am Ghazala Khan from The Pakistani Spectator (TPS), We at TPS throw a candid look on everything happening in and for Pakistan in the world. We are trying to contribute our humble share in the webosphere. Our aim is to foster peace, progress and harmony with passion.
We at TPS are carrying out a new series of interviews with the notable passionate bloggers, writers, and webmasters. In that regard, we would like to interview you, if you don’t mind. Please send us your approval for your interview at my email address “XXXXX@XXXX.com”, so that I could send you the Interview questions. We would be extremely grateful.
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Ghazala Khan
The Pakistani Spectator
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I am envious. I would love to attend one of these. Unfortunately, the airfare is a little pricey…
Adam – OK advantages of living on the beautiful North Coast:
* Redwoods
* Less people/less traffic
* Did I mention Redwoods?
Disadvantages
* Long ass drive to “civilization”
* Occasionally you miss shit like this
Stevo – From what Matt was saying at the conference, WordCamps are springing up organically all over the place. In fact, he mentioned that there had recently been one in Beijing. He was saying that he’ll hear about users organizing one themeselves, and the WP guys just show up unannounced. So, hey, if there are enough users in your neck of China . . .
Anyway, I actually think both of you guys probably would have dug this – particularly you Stevo since I know you like to play with your format and monetizing and such. And Adam, there was a session for those who wanted to switch from Blogger to WP. For me, a lot of it was a bit over myhead as I’m still on WordPress.com vs hosting my own site and using the features of WordPress.org. But, it did give me plenty to think about.
and dunt forget about the geek sausage ~
I thought about you and Ombudsben when I saw WP was having camp out there in the Bay Area. I almost went to the one in Ft Worth when they held it earlier this year. How was it.
How was it? You’ll have to tell us.
and please go heavy on the geek sausage
Jule & Corina —
Well as Marshmellows is alluding to, the conference was pretty much a geek fest, which I think is to expected at a software conference. And, while there were may 20% women there, it was indeed a bit of a sausage fest. OK, happy now, Marshmellows?
I fear the conference was a bit over my head. It was aimed more at people who were using WP on their own hosted sites, versus being hosted on WP.com as we are. But, that in itself was a learning – I had no idea that there was a WP.ORG, and that if you host your blog yourself, you have many many more options in terms of plug-ins and templates and such. You can also monetize (i.e. place Google Ad Sense ad) if you host your site yourself. Things to definitely consider.
I had been hoping they would focus more on content issues, but it was really more about how to best use the WP software and other WP issues, versus blogging issues in general. I’m glad I went though. I mean, for $20 you got the conference, a t-shirt and a BBQ lunch (which, being a vegetarian I did not partake it), so it was worth my time.
What I had to laugh at is how meta the whole thing got. I would say 3/4 of the 400+ attendees brought laptops, and perhaps half of them were either Twittering the conference, live steaming the conference, or blogging the damn conference while they were at the conference.
lol @ ‘jump on that shit’ and ‘sausage fest’.
LB: cool that you went, even if it wasn’t all you expected. Maybe you got some stuff to stretch in new directions?
Oh, I wish I had known, I would have joined you!
Amurin – I have made you laugh. My job here is done. 🙂
Om – Yeah, I definitely want to stretch, but my problem is having the time to do it. I’m in the process of discovering all sorts of things I would like to be doing, but unfortunately, too much of my time is taken up by my job. Ah, to be content to live hand to mouth, or to be independently wealthy or to be retired.
Cranky – Bummer. I should have pinged you. I thought about it, but I didn’t want to harrass you. Next time.