Its been just a few days short of one calendar year since I have moved to Albuquerque, and time has really flown, especially if you consider exactly how long I have gone without making real connections or friends. How the heck did I do it? Well one thing is for sure - counterintuitively, its much easier to make connections being single - or at least, much more of a necessity. For the first time ever in my days, moving to a new place has not seen make friends to be high on the priority list. I can thank Travis for this (gotta love him) because hes kept me so happy that I havent needed anyone to keep me company. But now the deficit of professional connections and an ever-growing perception that I might be missing out are leaning me towards a more impulsive exploration of the city. Get out and enjoy your own kind! It says.
Now wtf? My own kind? Do I have a kind? You bastard.. but no seriously. I do have a kind. Its the all-around creative with a lot of skills here and a few skills there. You can even take away the word creative and replace it with mechanic or student or even architect or clerical and still maintain some camaraderie. Really, the only thing that matters is that your skill levels and experience relate favorably to your age (group.)
So here I am having plans to go to the gym - yet I find a way to come home even more satisfied - the Web Geeks Happy Hour I found at Albuquerques own Social Networking site. This is a group that gets together once a month just for fun and networking - a sort of co-promotive group of equally altruistic, self-promoting, and who-gives a .. minded folk who like me, have many skills plus a few skills. Yet we can all aim at making that few skills more skills, but then you get a few more skills.
But I digress. Its easy to be intimidated by such groups as you approach a table where you know nobody knowing that you spent the last three hours of your life determined to get there. And I was, especially meeting folks with book deals and larger than life careers, older than me and seemingly within the same bracket of uptight. Enter alcohol. Ok scratch that last bit. Once youre sitting down and have a bit to say it isnt so bad. You wont even necessarily talk about related things. But of course, you probably will, because, like Twitter, everybody always wants to know what everybody else is doing.
Speaking of Twitter, (since everybody is talking about it) I was lead to this particular gathering from Twitter after finding someone who operates in Expression Engine (as in, the website youre on right now is in this Content Management System) and in Albuquerque - on Twitter. And though I have attended WebGeeks before, this time I found it through a completely separate set of leads, which was something I never expected. To clarify: I never expected something I already knew about through one avenue to surprise me around a separate corner of the web through people I didnt know and unrelated websites. There are a lot of appropriate quotations to go along with this experience, leaving me with the impression that Im not the first one to experience this, and yeah, duh! Youve been ignoring the gentle sublteties of your own exposure to life and knowledge this whole time. Welcome to earth, and the web, which has finally caught up to your perception of truly remarkable, unpredictable, and perhaps miraculous.
Well thanks, glad to be here. And glad to meet you.
(Whoever owns the image used.. for web geeks.. that I stole.. thanks.)
