It is amazing despite how much I’ve traveled that I know so little, or rather underestimate the greatness of the very locality I reside in.
Just came back from a github drinkup, and I must say not everyday do I find myself amazed how much bigger the world is than I have previously thought.
The first surprise was that github, the host, paid for all the drinks. Too bad I only discovered this after buying myself a beer. I’m pretty sure very few companies around the world would organize something like this, let alone paying for anyone who walks in.
Most importantly was the breadth and depth of the encounters: completely humble people who have achieved amazing things from writing an Objective C wrapper for Ruby (or Ruby wrapper for Objective C. I don’t know which is the right grammatical pattern to describe it) to those who are solving problems which I have encountered myself while achieving $2M in daily revenue (and they’ve invited me to talk to them!).
At some point during the night, I think Zach Holman was present, and also this very cute girl. Unfortunately, they both left before I finished gossiping about ActiveRecord with a fellow attendee. Also met a few folks whose company was just recently acquired by a much larger household name. Hearing their experience was immensely interesting because of all the cultural challenges they faced, whereas TechCrunch and the rest of the world would simply end the story with “and they lived happily ever”. I also spoke Japanese with a fellow developer who is married to a Japanese and “子供を作った”. (I have an odd habit of speaking Japanese when intoxicated)
The night ended with meeting the Engineering Head from iSocket, whose insights made me view the startup culture in new light, and another developer gossiping about the most unsuspecting of topics at such an meetup - preference of fob girls or Asian American girls.
This meetup only reaffirms that my decision to move back to AMURICA is more than just right. The only thing I can ask for at this very moment is CURRY RICE as I am not in the most sober of states. Sorry if this post turn out to be incoherent. (Also some details are intentionally vague because I don’t think the companies want to be named)
Oh if anyone at the meetup got my card which I stupidly forgot to put an e-mail address on, my e-mail is rickyp999@gmail.com.
