Very soon — this Saturday and Sunday, to be exact — a mass of bloggers will pack the conference rooms of Webtrends for the 2009 WordCamp Portland. This is a fun and informative couple of days stuffed with opportunities to learn tasty tidbits about the popular open source web site software WordPress. Perhaps you've heard of this WordPress thing? It's a free and mighty powerful content management system that makes hosting your own blog a snap. And with two solid days of learning such things as how to be your podcast’s dom and not its sub, how to build (and how NOT to build) a WP plugin, and how to make your blog load efficiently, you know it's going to be where all the cool kids are.

Tickets have been sold out for weeks (great job Aaron, Betsy and Dale!!) but if you were lucky enough to get your name on the attendees list I congratulate you on your good fortune! Last year I didn't get around to buying my WordCamp ticket before it was too late, and it was torturous seeing my twitter stream inundated with remarks of camp joviality, WordPress "Ah-ha!" moments, and links to flickr images of the smiling faces of my fellow bloggers. (OK, fine. I'll admit it. I simmered in silent resentment at some of the more active tweeters at last year's WordCamp Portland. But all is forgiven now. Mostly.)

Whether or not you've got yourself a ticket, please join Beer and Blog in extending a warm welcome to several WordPress speakers (and many attendees) for beers and conversation the day before the camp starting bell rings. We'll be at the Green Dragon. I'll be there, too, trying not to rub salt in the wounds of the ticketless. I feel your pain...and I'll be thinking about the pain Ill be inflicting while I drown my twitter stream in bragging, gleefull tweets with the excessive use of the #wcpdx tag.

You're welcome.