inessential by Brent Simmons

Real Life in Seattle

Seattle Xcoders started in 2004, I think. I was invited as a guest speaker in 2005, and I attended — and I never stopped going.

Well, I don’t always make it to the actual meeting the last few years, but I do attend the after-thing at the Cyclops.

And here’s why: it goes back to that very first meeting I attended 13 years ago, when I realized that seeing people regularly in real life is a fine and healthy idea.

Even for a solid introvert like me. Especially for introverts like me.

And now that we’re all replacing Twitter with other things for our social needs — with Mastodon for some people, Micro.blog for some (including me), Slack, Snapchat, plus falling back to the usual things like blogs and texting and email — we should remember that regular hanging-out-with-folks is massively important.

The Xcoders meetings are good and sometimes great. But the fact that it’s a social club also is not to be minimized or glossed-over — it’s super-important.

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There’s an unofficial Seattle Xcoders (no meeting) this Thursday at 7 pm at the Cyclops. You don’t have to be a coder to attend — designers, testers, writers, and lovers of Mac and iOS apps are all welcome and encouraged.

I won’t actually be at this Thursday’s thing this time (though I’m usually there) — but a week from Thursday (Aug. 30) is our special fifth Thursday unofficial at the Waterwheel in Ballard, and I’ll be there. It’s doubly unofficial — and a whole bunch of fun.

* * *

Just for fun, I thought I’d estimate how many times I’ve hung out with some of the original Xcoders such as Gus Mueller. Let’s call it an average 24 events a year, and let’s say we’re both at 12 of them. Over 13 years that’s 156 times.

I’ve probably said to him “Gus was the name of my cat” at least 100 of those times.