On a beautiful Saturday, Raincity's Francis, Erik and I are participating in Bay Area Drupal Camp (for background, see: BAD Behaviour Encouraged at Berkeley Camp at the historic Hearst Memorial Mining Building (not named for William Randolph Hearst for the record).

Two sessions under our belt so far and now we are enjoying a picnic lunch on the terrace on the otherwise empty campus (there is a football game going on across the way though).

First, Tao who was the confab ringleader, gave a hearty welcome to the assembled masses. We are the only "foreigners" amidst the mostly Californian crowd.

I checked out a spiel about how to make your website not look like a Drupal site which is great info to think about when crafting your new web site and want to avoid simply using a kluged box-grey theme. Unfortunately the auditorium's acoustics and squeaky chairs made for difficult listening but managed to take away a few tips and hints (i need a standard css to start from methinks).

Next up for me was Keiran speaking about the Drupal Association (more on this topic in: Boris Mann speaks about Drupal, Wi-fi and Ham). His presentation hit a tech snafu which actually turned out great as we circled up the old-timey wooden desks and engaged in a real useful conversation about the aims and mandates of the association which is just now really gaining some structure and process.

He talked about the process of dealing with the myriad layers of Belgian government required for legitimizing a non-profit in order to accept money, write cheques and represent the interests of the founding developers and wrangle the various domain-names, trademarks, logoart, and other assets into a less ad hoc context.

Challenges ahead indeed but an absolutely great time for anyone with organizational skills to step up and well, ... organize stuff. Get involved!

The backchannel with Alex in Vancouver and Scales in Beijing is hopping with suggestions, hookups and thoughts - seems like busy times ahead for Raincity (which is why we need more Drupalists).

This afternoon, I'll be rolling into more sessions and also planning to record up a batch of podcasts hopefully corralling Keiran Lal, Chris Bryant, Jonathan Lambert and a young whiz named Dmitri among others to capture some thoughts on the state and evolution of Drupal community and code - though i also want to catch a full slate of presentations to step up my knowledge.

Plus i am spreading yet unofficial rumors about Drupal Camp Vancouver in March or April - but don't tell anyone ;-).