Here’s how the week went:

- Etech: I did not go, and Shaun went in my place. His report is interesting in that he’d never been to the O’Reilly conference world before and thus had a fresh take on the events. I go to all these conferences (however SXSW always eludes me), and thus am a jaded crank. Gnomedex, for my money, is the most fun geek conference out there, in that it feels like summer camp. Not a lot of posturing, a whole lot of fun. We (Shaun and myself) and probably some other WBR peeps if I can arrange it, will be going to that.

- On that note, Shaun is now a WBR guy. So that makes two of us blogging!

- R.E.M. announced five dates in Dublin as a “working rehearsal.” This is interesting in that they did their announcement as a gradual roll-out to keep scalpers at bay. That meant it went on the wire at 9AM PST, but the wire story had no info on buying tickets. That info was only in an e-mail to fanclub members that went out at the same time. After an hour or so, the info on buying tickets made its way to REMhq. Those that had the links early, wisely, did not spread it and it seems that almost the entire ticket-run was picked up by R.E.M.’s hardcore fans. Very smart way of doing it on the guys part, and I’m glad we/I/it could help. I of course will be in Dublin that week, with perma-grin. I want to do some cool, innovative tech stuff from the city and venue, so any new companies in Dublin or around there that have things, hit me up.

- On that note, I’ll be in Europe, so I’ll also head over to maybe Amsterdam, Rotterdam or London to meet up with tech peeps. If anyone knows suggestions on where the hot-spot of Internet company activity is, let me know. Rotterdam is mostly digital art (V2 is there, etc). Amsterdam and London though have interesting stuff. I heard Berlin isn’t so much right now.

- Our Drupal project is running on all cylinders. OSCMS last week was great, and this week everyone was fired up to get things going quickly.

- The new White Stripes record is great, as is the new Arctic Monkeys. We are releasing both, which is cool.

- I’m still hiring.