montreal | tekArtist

As Arach said it best, even a day later:

Seems to me like most participants of #wcmtl are still on some sort of high. Meeting smart and nice people is better than drugs.

It was indeed too much geeky goodness crammed into one weekend for most attendees, just as much as for yours truly, to wean ourselves off all of it by Monday. :)

I’ll have to admit right away that I missed most of the actual sessions, because I kept “being volunteered” for such duties as WordPress Gangsta doorman and sit-down-next-to-me-during-my-talk-in-case-I-have-a-panic-attack’aid (true, ALL of it was fun). But from what I read, people seem to have enjoyed what they’ve seen and to have gotten answers to the questions they might have had.

On the other hand, being so heavily invested in WordPress through Praized Media and other projects/contributions/pipe-dreams, learning wasn’t what I was expecting for myself at the event, but mostly to get to “tribe up” with other people as passionate about the platform as I have now been for years. And, boy, was my wish ever granted!

Apologizing profusely for not being able to list everyone I’ve had the pleasure to meet, I truly had wonderful talks and/or plain old fun with the following people. Most of which is leading to enough ideas to keep us all busy until WordCamp Montreal 2010 (which I hereby predict will be twice as big and happen during the Jazz Fest again. Somehow… ;)

Here we go, in alphabetical order, by Twitter username, no bias:

@alexaclark – Alexa Clarck, with whom I had as much fun talking about her Cheap Eats Toronto and Cheap Eats Ottawa books/blogs/venture as I did talking about and enjoying Montreal’s food and restaurants.
@amoyal – Arié Moyal, who if nothing else (and there IS more) has lit the way to me desperately wanting to watch the Hebrew Hammer.
@arach – Arach Tchoupani, a skilled Python charmer with whom I had a great time talking about World politics, and thanks to (or because of) whom I was delivered the best pickup line by a woman in a bar in my entire life. A bit late for that girly-girl, married and 3 kids: can’t touch this! (♫ ta tadada tada tada ♫)
@digibomb – Brendan Sera-Shriar, who beta launched FlashPress, and with whom, I was apparently (and rightly so) “separated at birth and reunited at #wcmtl“. I’d say we clicked on so many levels, along with Pier-Luc and Arié, it’s actually kinda scary. ;)
@erinblaskie – Erin Blaskie, who despite being a fiery ball of lifestream smarts and energy, slept through her 12PM checkout on day 2. ☚ Ha ha! That’s what Montreal will do to ya. ;)
@evablue – Eva Blue, indie photographer extraordinaire, with whom I had a few extra-hilarious moments and who in my humble opinion, took most of the coolest shots of the weekend.
@photomatt – Matt Mullenweg, with whom I had a fun and casual chat ranging from high availability/fault tolerant database architectures, as well as the OpenMicroblogging specification and how it could pertain to our favorite codebase(s). I do have to call him on being a BIG TEASE though, because he left me with a maybe-not-so-utopic-web seeekreeet cliff hanger at the after-party Saturday night from which I still haven’t recouped from. Shame on you Matt. J’accuse!
@pluc – Pier-Luc Petitclerc, with whom I had a blast, pure and simple! Nothing new there, really. Business as usual.

All in all, I do not think that Sylvain Carle (@afrongnthevalley [en], @sylvaincarle [fr]) and Jeremy Clarke (@jeremyclarke) could have done a better job of organizing this first WordCamp Montreal. I mean, 160+ attendees/speakers from 2 countries for a quasi-free ($30, including free food/drinks) and theoretically local/regional-by-nature tech event spells success to me. Mega-props to these two for making this event happen, and to all of the speakers and attendees for making it the success it has been.

And then of course, there were the Brooklyn Sailors moments. Coz that’s how we roll [out kickass Open Source software]! :)