How I got married to Drupal...

At the end of 2005 I was about to go back to Europe after having lived and worked as a volunteer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for 6 months. During these months I kept in touch with my family and friends in Belgium by a self-made, very amateuristic website where I put some stories and some pictures... all done by pure html/css and an ftp client. Very very basic if I look back now. I was kind of proud about the result, but I knew that the possibilities of online publishing were much bigger ! I went back home... with a lot of 'life experience', but still unsure about what it was I was going to dedicate myself to.

There is one thing that I did have clear by then... I would travel much more during my life. And I would share my experiences by the internet, so that I could still be that journalist that I always wanted to be as a small kid. So as a hobby I started playing around with programs like Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Fireworks etc. I even started using my first CMS: Joomla ! I realized that I should not write too much html code myself, that it is much easier to learn php and create dynamic websites. A CMS like Joomla helped me realize that I even didn't have to write all php-code myself, that there were some very interesting open source communites out there that all share the same passion: online publishing and sharing.

Without having looked for it, after a few months I even had my first client: an architect from Belgium, a fellow taichi student of mine, who needed a new website. I started investing more and more time in learning various web-technologies: from html/css to php/mysql and javascript/jquery. I made a few websites with Joomla, but soon I found it a little too limiting. I personally found that the organization of the content structure behind Joomla was to imposing for me, I needed more flexibility. Enter Drupal.

It was on a party with friends that I got to know her. The same good friend that a few months before had introduced me to Joomla, already left her behind and was now talking about something much more flexible: Drupal ! According to him, Drupal appeared to be a little more difficult to learn, but much more flexible and powerful... I decided that I wanted to get to know her a bit better. A few days later we had our first date !

That is how we met, that is how our love story started, on a party.

By getting to know her better, I realized her potential, that she has much of what I was looking for in a (web) partner: steadiness, flexibility, quality, beauty, growth, internationality, power and surprisingly: she was from Belgium ! Never expected that I would marry a Belgian after all !

It was her who made me grow. With every month that passed by, I was shining more and more in my work. And isn't that exactly what a woman does to a man when he loves her ? My projects became bigger, made my first online shop (oh, she loooved that, she loves shopping) and even got international ! I decided to move to Barcelona, and you know what ? She decided to go with me ! Oooooh, now I know why I loved her so much... I could do what I want and she would always be there. Above that, she has friends everywhere... I met some of her friends right here, in Barcelona. She is so popular. I didn't realize that when I first met her. It's true, she is attractive, she is addicting, maybe that is why I am not the only one...

After one year of living and working in Barcelona, I decided to ask her to engage. I wanted to be sure that our love was mutual and that I could build on her while I was growing personally and professionally. And guess what: she said YES ! Suddenly my clients became much bigger, and my projects much more interesting. 

In the years after our engagement, the growth was steady, our love and understanding deepened and it was impossible to separate us. Until something important happened, something that caused a big shift in our relationship ! I remember it well... it was when I met a very good (Belgian) friend of her in DrupalCamp Spain 2010. By listening to his story and his relationship with his woman, I suddenly realized that this guy was married to the same woman as I was !!! It was a little shock to me... am I not the only one who is married to her... is she polygam ??? It appeared to be so. I had to change my value system. I could not separate from her because of this, that would be life threatening. So I decided to see the positive part of it... I decided to treat her husbands as a big family.

And this is where I am now. In August I will meet her family for the first time. This year they meet in London, in summer. Every six months they meet somewhere else... changing between the United States and Europe. I am kind of excited, you know. How is that going to be ? Meeting so many people that all share the same love for her... we will see... She told me it is just too fun and too interesting not to go ! I would make a lot of friends from all over the world... I would understand her much more, and I would even get a glimpse of how beautiful she will be with every new birthday...

Yeah, I think she is a very special woman: she becomes more beautiful with age ! Isn't that all a man wants ?

(Hehehe, so far this very geeky love story. Back to real life now :))