Most of the day was spent with Aja and Dre. We went to the breakaway sessions together, and also sat close to each other during the plenary sessions.

The first session we attended was Creating WordPress Themes and CSS Power by Gail Villanueva. While it was certainly interesting and well-explained, I couldn’t help but sit there and think, “I think I know this already.” I did enjoy listening to the discussion – however, like Aja mentioned, I too was hoping for a more advanced discussion. I understand that it may have been made that way for the benefit of the beginner users, though.

The next session we chose was Building a Blogging Community, a topic which was tackled by Blogie Robillo. This is probably the morning session that I enjoyed the most. We were a few minutes late and we missed the beginning of the talk, but I found the tips that were discussed useful. Unfortunately, it had to be cut short. I was a little disappointed because I truly wanted to learn more. But no worries. The kit that was distributed to the campers after the event contains a CD with the presentations.

The third session we attended was Blogging and Journalism by Danilo Arao. It was a very interesting and informative session.

I was able to meet Shari in the morning, as I was claiming my WordCamp t-shirt. She was very busy since she was a volunteer, so we didn’t have much time to chat. We were able to spend more time with her at lunch and after the event, where we discussed a project that we’ve been planning for more than a year now: a Philippine Web Standards group. Hopefully we’ll be able to make some progress this year, now that we’ve all met each other.

We were also able to meet the founding developer – Mr. WordPress himself, Matt Mullenweg. He signed my WordCamp t-shirt, and we were able to take photos with him (to be more precise, we sort of ambushed him outside the auditorium). Aja looked like a little boy on Christmas morning when Matt agreed to sign his excuse letter, because Aja didn’t attend his classes that day (although I’m pretty sure Aja won’t be showing it to his professors). You can view a photo of Aja’s excuse letter here.

WordCamp 2008 was fun and I’m looking forward to seeing what they have in store for next year. I’ll be going, even if I have to sit on bar stools the whole time. Oh, and here’s a photo of my WordCamp shirt, which Matt signed!