We were a much smaller group this month–and we came in waves. I organized a meetup at 2h00 p.m. Anthony from themacmind.com couldn’t make the 2h00 (he’s got classes) so he organized one at 5h30. I stayed for both. The one and only Mr. Mullenweg was in Texas at the SxSW conference and is attending another meetup there.

Cynthia, a new media teacher, came with questions about consolidating blogs and users. Check out her class blog at: jour163.wordpress.com.

Both Theo and Lori were new members and were very helpful to us non-techies. I found out–at the meetup–that two of my sites had been hij acked. Theo insisted he help fix it, even after I was a bit short because, the last thing I need is two of my sites to be down. Thank you Mr. Theo. He showed us how he was using WordPress on his sister’s (an amazing garden artist) site. If you have a moment Mr. Theo, can you send me the link?

Lori is a website developer. She says WordPress is fastly becoming her software of choice. I know I’m going to be asking Lori for support. Her sites are at BeeDragon.com and lbnuke.com.

Later, at the 5h30 wave, Andrew from brainflare.com arrived. I’m sure he was expecting a bit more action though. Same for Kevin from Tailrank. Next time guys, we’ll be better organized. I am feeling old lately. At this wave of the meetup, I definitely felt a generation gap. Over-aged and under-accomplished. Whatever, there is only one direction to go from here.

Andrew is an impressive 17-year old. He is the founder and brain behind Quizlet, a web application that helps people learn vocabulary. Kevin is the CEO and Founder of Tailrank. He’s thirty and Tailrank is his second company. Yep. I like the Bay Area. Technology is hot. People are energized and motivated. It’s catching.

Today was the WordPress meetup in San Francisco. I was a bit late because I’m not familiar with driving in the city and I had to stop and ask for directions twice. I’ll need to get a map I think. The meetup was quite successful. Anthony of www.themacmind.com actually put it together. I’m hoping to work with him for the next few–but, I don’t know yet. I guess we’ll just have to see.

There was quite a turn out: a variety of backgrounds and interests. Some WordPress guys were there (that was exciting). I guess I should say THE WordPress guys were there. Ryan Boren was fixing a bug for the next WordPress release in a corner while everybody else was chatting away. I talked to Barry for a bit. He was introduced to me as the WordPress server-guy. I also found out he runs servers for other organizations too–at the Laughing Squid for example. The world is a very small place when you get online. Really. I hadn’t heard about the Laughing Squid until–coincidently–the day before. I had googled Dave Best to see where he was in the online world. Dave’s one of our neighbours at Bush-Field and last weekend we stopped by for tea. Both he and Alan were talking about how many hits they get on their websites. Dave wins hands down–and he doesn’t even have a website. Regardless, I ended up reading about recent happenings at Burning Man on the Laughing Squid. So, now I know about the Laughing Squid and I know that Mr. Abrahamson is the server guy–or according to his business card: Chief Tentacled Officer. Small, small world when you get online.

Mr. Mullenweg was impressive and rather affable. I asked for his card. I think he rather reluctantly gave me his second-last one he had in his wallet. I laughed and threatened to sell it on ebay’s sequel in twenty-or-so-odd years. I probably should have gotten him to sign it. And now, as a result of a totally random event (or the fact that I was carrying beer in my shoulder bag over to the neighbours to watch a comet set over the horizon at sunset and my cards I’d collected from this meetup were in the bottom of my shoulder bag and at one point Alan put an open bottle of beer in my bag), my prized card is now covered in beer. I guess I could make up a wild and crazy story about the beer-soaked card and Matt Mullenweg–but, it really is my fault–or Alan’s. Sigh, and now this entry is more about Matt Mullenweg’s beer-soaked business card and not about the meetup at all. I really have to learn to focus.

I didn’t get to meet everybody there, because–believe it or not–I’m quite shy. I did meet a few people and can only hope to meet the rest at a subsequent meetup.

Stay tuned to the WordPress Meetup San Francisco page.

I’m going to be organizing a WordPress meetup in San Francisco on 27 Jan 2007. I have been using WordPress to make a few other sites lately, and I decided to try to find some other bloggers out there who use (and sometimes struggle with) the software.

I looked on meetup.com to see if there was a group already organized in the greater Bay area, but alas–no. I discovered meetup.com sort of by accident when I was thinking about meeting other Canadians in the Bay Area.

Regardless, I’ll be organizing a WordPress meetup next year. I haven’t the faintest idea how to do it, but–like the rest of my life–I’ll just figure it out.