Today was the last day of training with Raincity Studios (the name fits the torrents of rain and now turbid undrinkable water plaguing the city) and Bryght.

There were attendees from across Canada and the United States. I was amazed at the breadth of participants. I think (and hope) I have come away with some good contacts, perhaps some friends, but most of all great information.

The last four days have been extremely informative. I believe that what I learned/relearned/confirmed would have taken me 2-4 months to figure out on my own.

In a nutshell what did we cover.

The first day focused on Drupal overview, core functions, themes, and modules.

The second day was a "design for developers" and "development for designers" set of sessions. This gave insight into both sides of the coin.

The third day was a design track where we decomposed the basic ways that Drupal pages are built and function.

The fourth day was review and the building a theme from scratch. I have come quite a long way in putting together my own custom three column theme using a base theme and CSS. I have done almost no style sheet programming in nearly eight years. None-the-less the trainers were patient and in the end I was grasping the design concepts that you need to fall under.

This four days were some of the most informative and valuable training days that I have had since grad school. The material follows a new vision that WESTAF has by way of entering into the realm of Web 2.0. I was gratified to have the opportunity to learn from these guys. Now to apply it practically!

I have started a Flickr Group that has photos from the event. I have hopes that others who attended and gave training will be able to add notes, photos, and tags to it.

Thanks guys. It was a great opportunity and I learned a ton.