Ribasushi's civility-free zone

Remember how I pointed out last year that the Perl community is *AWESOME*? Well, glad some things stay the same :)

This year I am part-time unemployed and was only planning to maybe visit YAPC::EU in Sofia. I wasn't looking to do another crowdfund because, well, others should get a chance too :) And in fact one such campaign is running right this moment for our very own Leon 'leont' Timmermans. The fact it has been up for several hours and is already closing to 10% makes me quite happy and confident I'll meet Leon in sunny Orlando in couple weeks.

Wait, you say, I thought you weren't going to YAPC::NA (which some say will be amazing). So what happened? The consultancy of IntelliTree happened and in particular Henry Van Styn, the mind behind the free kick-ass model-driven CMS called RapidApp. Henry not only offered to sponsor my entire visit, no strings attached and no questions asked. No, he also spent a lot of his time to relentlessly badger me into actually accepting his proposal, and for that I am truly grateful. So come see my talk in couple weeks, and then hang around for Henry's very own introduction and live demo of RapidApp.

But wait there is more - I am currently in "we want you as a guest speaker" talks with the YAPC::Asia organizers. All because I opened my inbox several days ago and found a short and to the point message from Kenichi 'charsbar' Ishigaki (of CPANTS fame). He simply said "Call-for-papers for YAPC::Asia has started - you should get in touch with the organizers". Just an idea, not much more. But that idea led to more ideas and emails and... now I am likely to visit all three major perl conferences of the year, while barely being able to afford one.

I don't know about you, but the magnitude and the very existence of this "network effect" gets me ecstatic. No matter what happens in the "real world" (and sometimes the real world does suck), I know that I will have my abundance of friends, pretend-foes, and downright arch-nemeses (they know who they are, and that I love them anyway ;) They are right there, a chat window (or soon a bar-table) away.

And that is a good feeling.

See you soon, wherever you may be ;)