Drupalcon: Thoughts, Experiences

I've been meaning to write something about going to DC, and DrupalCon and all that jazz. I suppose I ought to, it's been... holy crap... almost a month. I've never been good about blogging about events, I'm usually too excited to write something near to when it's happened and then by the time that I get around to it.... I don't really want to be writing about that anymore and I make it all sound so droll...

To put it right on the table, the reason I go to DrupalCon is to socialize. The sessions are great, the BoFs are fantastic, and I always learn a ton... but the main reason I'm drawn is the human element. The things I remember aren't going to be the technical details... it's going to be the hanging out and getting silly with friends.

This year, DrupalCon was huge and overwhelming. I read the total number of attendees this year was 1,422.... Double the size that it was in Boston, and I thought that was huge and overwhelming. I know there were people that I wanted to see while I was there and didn't just because of the sheer volume of people. However, I did get to spend some quality time with some absolutely wonderful folks.

I think it's only appropriate for me to call some people out on their awesomeness.

Josh, Matt, Zack and the rest of the gang over at Chapter Three constantly kept doing things that made my week. From being the only folks who knew the exact reference of my husband's t-shirt... to making sure that we had enough drinks... to being there to beat-up upon in laser tag... to the creation of nicelobster.com... Chapter Three wins the outright awesome award. Hopefully when I'm less poor again, I'll make the trip out to the left coast to visit.

By day three of the conference, I was pretty burnt out. I was wandering the conference hall feeling rather lonely and a bit like an underachiever. I was hard pressed to find a familiar face, and the ones I did find were busy with client emergencies and such. Then, perfectly timed, Jacob Redding found me and set forth to cheer me up. I can hardly find the words to describe how meaningful it was to me that Jacob took time out of his busy day to comfort and encourage me. Thanks so much, Jacob!