In the midst of a bustling (and fantastic) WordCamp Portland put on by Aaron Hockley and a fantastic host of volunteers we took the opportunity to talk with Matt Mullenweg, and since I never resist the urge to pass on a little knowledge we kick the interview off with a martini lesson. He was a quick study. Enjoy!

Disclosure time again: I gave a talk on Podcasting with my partner, Dr Normal at WordCamp Portland. Strange Love Live and OurPDX were both sponsors of WordCamp Portland. Oh, and I think it rocked.

Related Posts

• August 17, 2009 -- SLL: WordcampPdx 2009, Urban Airship and PIE (0)
• October 19, 2009 -- SLL: Friday Night with Will & Fatboy (0)
• October 12, 2009 -- SLL: Talking the Talk with Pdxsucks (0)
• October 5, 2009 -- SLL: Art Night with Mark Colman (0)
• September 28, 2009 -- SLL: Wiki with Steven Walling (0)

Last Monday night we had a chance to sit down and catch up with Scott Kveton of Urban Airship and Jason Glaspey at PIE. We recorded our 30 minute chat just for you (we’re nice like that) and so this week we have a bonus Tech Edition of SLL for you to enjoy.

SLL Episode 123: Urban Airship at PIE

Watch the Tech Edition

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When we originally schedule Friday’s guest, Aaron Hockley, it was a strategic move. We decided months ago to schedule the episode a week after ticket sales for the 2nd Wordcamp Portland opened thinking that it would be perfect timing. Ticket sales would already be under way but there would still be plenty of room for those hearing about the event on the show to sign up.

Oh boy were we wrong. By the time Aaron and Dale joined us in studio people were already signing up on the wait list.

Join us for the Tech Edition and Afterhours to learn more about WordCamp Portland.

SLL Episode 124: WordCamp Portland 2009

Watch the Tech Edition

SLL Episode 125: Afterhours with Aaron Hockley & Dale Chumbley

Watch Afterhours

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Next Friday night join us on the stream at 10 PM while we talk with Dieselboi of Food Carts Portland. Food is something near and dear to all our hearts and stomachs so I know it’ll be an interesting night as we find out more about how Food Carts Portland is covering Portland’s thriving food cart scene.

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For more info on the Strange Love Live podcast visit their site.

Related Posts

• September 21, 2009 -- SLL: Martini Lesson for Matt Mullenweg (2)
• October 5, 2009 -- SLL: Art Night with Mark Colman (0)
• August 9, 2009 -- SLL: Turoczy and the Tiara of Truth (0)
• July 25, 2009 -- SLL: Dude, Where’s My Newspaper? (3)
• July 13, 2009 -- SLL: Toon in to Tyler Sticka (2)

It’s always funny to me that Portland is the largest city in the state of Oregon, because everywhere I go I’m reminded of how small our fair city really is. Join us for a chat about WordPress with Chris O’Rourke and then stay tuned to for the NSFW afterhours episode to find out how Chris and I may have known each other years before we met, a couple of months ago… Add in Verso, politics, a special announcement, drum corp and enough Doctor Who talk to make a normal person sick, and you’ve got this week’s episodes of Strange Love.

WordPress with Chris O’Rourke

Afterhours with Chris O’Rourke

As always you can listen to the shows here, download them, subscribe or pick us up on itunes so you can always be the first to know when we’ve released a new episode…

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Join us Friday November 14th at 10 PM for a recap chat about Ignite Portland 4. Are you going to Ignite 4? Make sure to cheer for all the friends of Strange Love Live who’ll be standing in the Ignite spotlight for 5 minutes, including Our PDX Network’s very own Betsy Richter &  Cami Kaos.

Related Posts

• August 17, 2009 -- SLL: WordcampPdx 2009, Urban Airship and PIE (0)
• September 21, 2009 -- SLL: Martini Lesson for Matt Mullenweg (2)
• November 10, 2009 -- Food Carts Portland on NBC Nightly News (3)
• November 9, 2009 -- SLL: Locketman (0)
• September 14, 2009 -- SLL: The Miracle in July… In September (0)

Here’s what we’ve found as we’ve traveled the local PDX web (complete with our comments) for September 29th

• WordCamp Portland (#wordcampdx) 2008: Ironically, words escape me » Silicon Florist – Rick's left speechless; while the rest of us aren't!
• Like WordPress and OpenID? wp-openid 3.0 to launch at Demolicious » Silicon Florist – Mark your calendars and show up on 10/1 at Nemo Design to see what Will Norris has cooked up for the next iteration of the WordPress openID plugin!
• Ignite Portland 4 Submission Opens! at Ignite Portland – Deadline's October 14th; will need to huddle with 10 year old to figure out how best to bring the bling…!

Note: you can share bookmarks back to our site if you have a Mag.nolia account – just join our group and then send relevant links to that group when you mark a site, article, or post!

Related Posts

• October 7, 2008 -- Tell a Story in Five Minutes or Less… (2)
• September 21, 2009 -- SLL: Martini Lesson for Matt Mullenweg (2)
• August 17, 2009 -- SLL: WordcampPdx 2009, Urban Airship and PIE (0)
• June 23, 2009 -- What’s Your $$$ Situation? (4)
• June 12, 2009 -- PDX in Your Pictures: Tickets to Ride (0)

WordCamp Portland, was, let’s face it, everything you could ever possibly wish for in a crazy election year while the economy crumbles – and much, much more.

Geoff K summed up WordCamp’s brilliance really well in his article, “What I learned from WordCamp Portland“, but I wanted to add my observations as a first time caller, long time listener of OurPDXNetwork.

My highlights?

As I recall, in the first giveaway there were two dozen unbranded oil-free hybrid cars powered by the collective kinetic energy of a crowd of mad MacBook Air keystrokers and Power User iPhone/Blackberry text messagers. In the hand-stitched organic velvet gift bags, we each received free matching his-and-her HD videocams with a gift certificate for a lifetime personal satellite uplink (and stickers!), a complimentary Herman Miller Aeron chair (and a button!), and a lifetime subscription to pre-edited versions of StrangeLoveLive. And then there was the outdoor fully-immersive multiplayer virtual reality gaming arena, but that was kind of boring unless you’re into that sort of thing.

Which I am.

To be balanced, I felt that the scavenger hunt for handfuls of free hacked iPhones and Japanese-test-market A-I Google devices in the room that was filled with oversized private label Jägermeister Voodoo donut holes was a bit excessive, but I say to each his own.

In other words, if you weren’t there, well, maybe not your strongest move.

You might have thought that staying home and knitting in preparation for winter was the right way to go for a Saturday, but actually…and this is true: There was also full-on needle-on-needle knitting action going on during WordCamp by the master knitters of CubeSpace who so graciously hosted the unbridled chaos that was collectively referred to as Widgets Gone Wild during the BravoTV nationwide simulcast. Would that I were joking.

What I learned at WordCamp PDX, between the lines

1. 8:45 – Changing Lives with WordPress: Fairy Blog mothers do not steal the teeth of WordPress children, unlike their less-fortunate and somewhat embarrassingly dentured Blogger and Typepad childlike counterparts. Move over to WordPress or face the consequences, because nobody likes to have their eyelids superglued shut, now do they hmmm???

2. 9:45 – From Concept to Execution: While some may have thought Betsy Richter (@betsywhim) was reaching out for an intervention to stop an odd menage with Knob Creek and some heavy-lifting WordPress plugins, I think not. She clearly has the Lord on her side, having received from on High what will surely be the 10 commandments for the coming Golden Age of the Blog (GAB™ ®).

3. 10:30 – Using WordPress for World Domination: Justin Kistner and his crazy-smart use of WordPress MultiUser (MU) may very well be on the committee of those who handed down said tablets to Ms. Richter, which were apparently screencasts. He at the very least helped her to schlep them down from the mountain. Aaron Hockley (@Hockley) was apparently busy at that time handling the keg-rolling, which was also clearly the work of the Lord.

4. 11:45 – And then the Lord said unto thee there shall be Lunch and chattering. And it was good.

5. 1:30 – WP 2.7 Sneek Peek: “WordPress 2.7 may or may not, at any given moment, have these incredibly cool new features that we may, or may not, be able to show you in this build, because folks, we are livin’ life as in-the-moment as a live report of Matthew McConaughey on TMZ in the soiled waters of a Malibu surf break. If you don’t see a feature you want, fill out the online survey that will be offline in two hours, and hit Apple-r. Voila!”

And ya know what? It was STILL awesome.

6. 2:00 – Tying Your Tubes with WordPress, a sixer, and the skilz of @Jabancroft: I did not realize how powerful one man with some crazy PHP, a hang nail-sized microchip, a computer with a cat, and Windows 95 can actually be. I bow. (Even more shocking? The word “skilz” does not trip the spellchecker in WP. How cool is that? Did I break something?)

7. 3:00 – Dane Hesseldahl from Nemo on custom plugin development: Live coding during your presentation is the final frontier, and Dane clearly fears no one. Who else do you know who can write SQL queries while talking about securing text fields AND making fancy hand puppet shadows, all without spilling a drop?

8. 4:00 – Ask the Experts panel: Voting widgets? Very very bad. Accessible blogs? Very very good. Making your blogs translatable into Klingon? Ask Lorelle after the show.

9. Dinner, another sixer, and tattoos: For once, a contest that was not rigged. Unless you count wearing a Goonies shirt as a form of doping, which I do believe was the tipping point among so many good entries. But it is very clear that the pre-contest testing was rather loose, and besides, with the singularity being imminent and all, doping may become necessary for all of us to keep up.

Did I mention beer (thank you Widmer Brothers)?

10. And finally, what did I learn from the great group of people gathered at the first of many WordCamp PDX’s to come (hint, hint), other than the fact that Portlanders may be systematically destroying the Twitterverse with the sheer volume of #wordcampdx (one p) and #wcpdx hash tags and livetweets?

I learned that this community of incredible people quite literally blows my mind. Time travel not required.

Thank you WordCamp PDX. Inspirations galore.

Related Posts

• September 18, 2008 -- OurPDX shared bookmarks (0)
• September 21, 2009 -- SLL: Martini Lesson for Matt Mullenweg (2)
• August 17, 2009 -- SLL: WordcampPdx 2009, Urban Airship and PIE (0)
• December 8, 2008 -- WordPress Release Party and Blogger Food Drive (7)
• November 9, 2008 -- SLL: A Night With Chris O’Rourke (1)

Here’s what we’ve found as we’ve traveled the local PDX web (complete with our comments):

• Where Do We Get a Good Slice in Portland, Oregon? | Slice Pizza Blog – Help a new NYC transplant find pizza nirvana in PDX. The challenge? It has to be by the slice, not a whole pie…
• WordCamp Portland » Automattic to Preview WordPress 2.7 at WordCamp Portland – Jane Wells from Automattic will be at WordCamp on September 27th to show off new features and changes in WP 2.7. The only bad news for you if you’re not already signed up for WordCamp Portland? We are full, full, full & you’ll have to sign up for the rapidly-expanding waitlist if you want to try to attend…
• Sept 25: See a Movie for 3 Cans of Food (Oregon/SW Washington) | Around the Sun: A Blog About Saving Money in Portland, Oregon, and beyond – Help support the Oregon Food Bank *and* catch a flick? Awesome!
• Wall Street problems will hit Portland | Portland Business Journal: – Next to go, according to this BizJournal article? Wachovia and WaMu. Oh, greaaat.

Note: you can share bookmarks back to our site if you have a Mag.nolia account – just join our group and then send relevant links to that group when you mark a site, article, or post!

Related Posts

• September 29, 2008 -- WordCamp Portland was Waaaaay better than WordCamp [Insert your lame city here] (11)
• September 21, 2009 -- SLL: Martini Lesson for Matt Mullenweg (2)
• August 17, 2009 -- SLL: WordcampPdx 2009, Urban Airship and PIE (0)
• June 22, 2009 -- OurPDX shared links for June 22nd (0)
• April 17, 2009 -- OurPDX shared links for April 17th (2)

Are you a WordPress blogger who wants to wants to take your blog to the next level? Then you need to join us at WordCamp Portland on Saturday, September 27th at CubeSpace.

You don’t have to be a hardcore technical type or programmer to attend. (Hell, you don’t have to be technically gifted to present – I’m living proof of that!) Instead, noted WP blogger Lorelle Van Fossen will kick things off at 9 am with her keynote: Changing Lives with WordPress. We’ll have a ‘Ask the Experts’ panel, speakers including local luminaries like Josh Bancroft, Rick Turoczy, and Marshall Kirkpatrick, breakout sessions, unconference sessions for attendees to self-organize themselves on an ad-hoc basis, and more.

This all-day conference will cost you a mere 10 dollars – which includes a t-shirt, meals, and beer. Yes, there will be beer – in fact, Our PDX Network is more than happy to be ponying up for a keg (or two) to help support WordPress Portland…!

So head on over and register now, will you? I need to start figuring out how much this is going to cost me already…

Related Posts

• September 21, 2009 -- SLL: Martini Lesson for Matt Mullenweg (2)
• August 17, 2009 -- SLL: WordcampPdx 2009, Urban Airship and PIE (0)
• November 9, 2008 -- SLL: A Night With Chris O’Rourke (1)
• September 29, 2008 -- OurPDX shared bookmarks for September 29th (0)
• September 29, 2008 -- WordCamp Portland was Waaaaay better than WordCamp [Insert your lame city here] (11)

After the last BarCamp Portland a month or so ago, Aaron Hockley wanted to spearhead a similar informal Saturday un-conference for WordPress users, developers, and/or designers – or even for WordPress wanna be’s, for that matter.

While I don’t fall into either category, I’d already blocked September 27th off on my calendar and am volunteering my time to help make this happen – I really loved the energy at BarCamp & am a total WordPress idiot savant (brilliant at some things, not so hot at others), so am thrilled to see this coming together.

Aaron’s worked hard to find a space (thanks, CubeSpace!), a date, and even some tentative guest speakers (if you want to be part of the planning process – we could use someone to help find sponsors, for example – feel free to join the WordCamp Portland Google Group.) And now, there’s even a WordCamp Portland website!

There’ll be more news later, of course – but for now, we want you to a) save the date, and b) let us know you’re interested via the Upcoming links available.

(Thanks to Reid Beels for his work here getting the site up and running…)

Related Posts

• September 21, 2009 -- SLL: Martini Lesson for Matt Mullenweg (2)
• August 17, 2009 -- SLL: WordcampPdx 2009, Urban Airship and PIE (0)
• May 4, 2009 -- OurPDX shared links for May 4th: The ‘future of journalism’ edition (0)
• May 1, 2009 -- Merging ‘old’ media & ‘new’ media, right here in PDX (0)
• April 23, 2009 -- Give Some Love to BarCamp Portland (1)