I was in a similar boat. My early blog made money for me through affiliate sales for books about Flash, which eventually led to me writing books on Generator / Flash, which led to a job at Macromedia, which led to me reaching out and recognizing people in the community!
Miss blogs and the culture around them so much.
Here are some more images of some of that Macromedia swag: https://flickr.com/photos/mikechambers/albums/72157594191144...
Man, you are making me cry. You made me sit and talk with the authors whose books I read to get a job, you made me have dinner with the people who made the software that I worked with.
I regret never getting a picture with you, and sorry for sleeping out on the Halo Game night at "W" that night. First jet-lag experience in my life and learning to adjust.
Edit: I think I'm mixing up the timelines but the gist of story remains. I do not have the email archives prior to 2006, and I lost all emails from brajeshwar.com, and the photos metadata are scrambled after a crash-recovery around 2006-2007.