Once I knew the conference dates in the States I realised that the IndieWeb meetup in Austin would be happening on the first Wednesday of the month, which was an evening when I would be in Houston. Noting it was a mere 2.5 hour drive (far closer than a 28 hour door to door flight) I decided to drop by.

I arrived at 6:30pm exactly, met a fellow geek who recognised my geekiness from my shirt and mentioned it was his first time coming to a meetup, not knowing what anyone looked like. Initially we didn’t see anyone else obvious so I ordered a coffee and then we checked again.

I recognised Manton immediately and we found a table to fit us all - seven in total. After introductions we talked about web development, the differences between ActivityPub and WebMention, different projects and sites we’re hosting and how, podcasts we’re involved with and lots and lots more.

It’s odd but for most of us being complete strangers it really felt quite comfortable and as I look back as I’m writing this I realise just how much I’ve missed out on not living in or near hubs where like minded software developers tend to live. Austin has become a focal point, San Francisco has been for some time as well whereas in Australia there aren’t really any I know of, perhaps Adelaide up to a point, certainly none near me.

As the evening was closing Manton walked through the upcoming IndieWebCamp which sounds really interesting so if you’re a developer in the area I’d check it out.

We talked for over 1.5 hours in total and I had a great time. If you’re in the Austin area and you’re interested in becoming or already are a web developer then I highly recommend dropping by to a meetup. The venue is usually Mozarts Coffee, which make great coffee and have a wonderful setup and no issue parking, though to be safe I’d follow Manton for announcements and updates.

Thanks to Manton Reece for organising it and to everyone else that attended and made me feel welcome.