It's official, I just bought my ticket to DrupalCon San Francisco 2010!! The first 200 people to sign up were able to get their tickets at the low price of $150. So was I one of those lucky people? Well.. no. Unfortunately for me, I must have been #201 cause I had to pay $195. I'm not complaining though, $195 bucks is well worth it for being able to attend this exciting yearly event - It just would have been cool to say yeah, I was one of the first 200 people, ya know? 

This years conference promises to feature "the most famous technology professionals in the Drupal Community" (http://sf2010.drupal.org/conference) and all the bells and whistles that come with such an event. Big tricked out name tags, case studies, training. interesting new ideas and meeting all the amazing people who are involved. Wow, I wonder if I will be able to meet Dries? If you know nothing about Drupal (shame on you), he's the founder.

In the year 2000 (best if said like the guy from Conan O'Brien), University of Antwerp student Dries Buytaert, put together a site for him and his college buddies to discuss topics such as their work, interesting notes, and where to eat and drink after classes. I find this somewhat interesting as Drupal is now used by a great many businesses and record labels for the primary function of social networking sites. Enough about Dries, I believe some background on Drupal and myself is in order. 

I have been developing sites in Drupal for a few years, and have come to realize how powerful and flexible this open source cms is (I prefer to think of it as a developer platform or content management framework). Being someone who preferred to build content management systems from scratch using php and mysql, I found Drupal to be a solid foundation to build sites on that could be customized quickly to the nth degree. Pretty much anything you might need on your standard website can be found in Drupal core, or in one of the countless contributed modules that are also open source and free to be installed. Don't like how something works? You can change it. Need some help? There are so many people willing to answer questions on forums and in places like IRC rooms that you can take advantage of.

To me, the best thing about Drupal is the community behind it. Dedicated folks putting their time in to contribute, support and grow this massive beast for the good of all mankind. Ok, that is a bit over the top, but you get the point. Some are paid to do it by sponsors, some just do it because the love of being a part of something bigger. Next year is going to be great, and I can't wait for DrupalCon. If I'm gonna be honest, I'm looking forward to the DrupalCon after parties. I will find the best Martini, and report back. I promise.