Heh, it was only yesterday I was talking about bohemian lifestyle. Today I actually met a person who’s practising this exact lifestyle.

I like web design, and started doing it a long while ago, since 1998, when I got my very own computer. The one thing that altered my view on how pages should be built was when I first discovered the CSSZengarden that was created by Dave Shea. His website opened me to the very idea of standards based design, and how stylesheets were the future of web design. When I first visited that site, I was impressed that the page was a single HTML file, but just by changing the CSS file, you could present that one page in an infinite amount of ways. I was sold to that idea and have been learning this new method of design ever since.

I’m talking about this now cause today I had the chance to actually meet up with the very person I am talking about. He and Douglas Bowman (another prominent figure in the web world) were in Sydney to attend a Web Standards Group conference. These two gentlemen have their own blogs on their websites and even while travelling, they still manage to update their websites with the latest tidbits. While reading one of their websites last night, I found out that they were actually coming to Melbourne. The location is just like a 10 minute walk from where I stay, so why not just go take a look?

Anyway, it’s cool that I actually got to shake hands with Douglas Bowman (heh, he’s no popstar, but an icon none the less) . It was a small function, with around 30 people who attended and this is the very first place I can talk to people about tableless design, stylesheets, CSS and people would understand me.

Which returns me to the beginning of my post, I met up with an interesting person, or two actually. There’s this guy who’s from the Netherlands (didn’t get his name, the pub of sorts was a little noisy), who’s been backpacking around the world with his laptop and a D70 (now, you really wish you were in his shoes) and visiting the local places. He’s been travelling for a year and 6 days now, and was in New Zealand for a year. He’s a computer science graduate and did programming for a living, until he saved up enough to just go travelling. He’s been paying the expenses for this trip through freelance web design jobs he does for companies as he travels along. I can only imagine what the experience is like to go backpack alone like that and doing the things you really enjoy.

The other guy I met was a local Aussie who was based in Perth (now residing in Melbourne). This guy also does freelance webdesign and has travelled to so many places around the world and he remembers all the wonderful things about the places he’s been to, like parts of Europe etc. He was talking about how he’d want to actually work a bit more these coming months as jobs dwindle from November to January, due to the summer arriving and the laidback environment during that period.

Heh, really weird. I’ve never done this before, going out to meet people I don’t even know and actually chatting to find out more about others. I guess the saying birds of a feather flock together as I really did this out of interest.