It was great to hang out with Matt again after about two years. The first time we met in person was in 2008 for the first WordCamp in the Philippines. When I went to the Automattic offices in San Francisco, he was in Ireland, unfortunately, so it was only this month that I got the chance to see my true American idol. Matt was in Manila for WordCamp Philippines 2010.

I’d just arrived from Europe and, in spite of the rather bad jet lag, went out for drinks with my good friends Christian & Bhambee, Chattee, and Matt.

Thanks, Christian, for the photos!

Automattic sent me a Moleskine notebook yesterday, as a token for having organized WordCamp Philippines 2009. It’s way cool — the “legendary notebook” embossed with the WordPress logo on the front cover!

Last year, Maya, Matt‘s indefatigable girl friday, sent me a WP hoodie for my efforts in 2008.

It’s certainly heart-warming, to be given such simple yet memorable gifts. Advocating the use of WordPress is its own reward, but tokens of appreciation do lift the spirit up when they are received.

To this end, I’ve organized four WordCamps to date since 2008 (two official ones, and two mini-WordCamps), and I’ve conducted several WordPress seminars and workshops in various cities around the Philippines. See, in 2008 when I spoke with Matt Mullenweg over Skype before the first WordCamp in the country, he asked how many WordPress users there were here. I took it as a challenge to help increase the number!

Before this, I’d been writing about WordPress and related activities over at my personal blog. From now on, all things WP & me will be posted right here. Subscribe to the blog feed to keep abreast of training seminars, bloggers and developers events, and many others. Feel free to send me suggestions, greetings and other such shoutouts that give bloggers that warm & fuzzy feeling.