T-Shirt maker roundup from SXSW15, and other random stats

Attending SXSW is a crazy ride on many fronts, but the first you are able to process mentally are the little things. As soon as you arrive home and decompress, you’ll pick up on the oddest of observations. These are a couple of mine.

T-Shirt makers, by the numbers

While removing tags from and washing all the free t-shirts I collected from SXSW, I thought it might be an interesting collection of manufacturers—for people who like numbers, or who order shirts for things: Continue reading →

Geeks eat more pizza in smaller groups

Back in 2008 or so, I got involved in DC’s burgeoning tech meetup community. Fast forward a couple years to 2010 when my office moved into a new space with a great venue for hosting my favorite meetups. We started with DC PHP and immediately after, WordPressDC. Then DCjQuery (now DCJS), followed suit.

With three related meetups going, we were getting a lot of traffic and cross-pollination of members. There was also no shortage of sponsorship for food and beverages—though we were typically, BYO. Pizza is common fare for a meetup, just because it’s easy and doesn’t require too much in the way of incidentals like plasticware. Continue reading →

OSS BBQ 2013: Setting the bar high for summer fun

This summer we held the 3rd-annual open source software barbeque (#OSSBBQ) in DC‚ an event many in the local tech crowd (including myself) get excited about ever year. It’s a social event for the DC PHP, jQuery, and WordPress meetup groups borne out of convenience (or inconvenience, rather).

In the spirit of open source, this post should give you a behind-the-scenes tour of how we pull it off. You can do it too! Continue reading →

This beer, that beer, which beer: satisfying en masse

This week, I fired up my grill for the first time in 2013. That makes it BBQ season, soon to be beach season, and ultimately summer beer season. Choosing the right beer to use as your social event entrance fee, or to cater to your own guests, can sometimes feel like a special kind of PR strategy. What seems expensive, but not too expensive? What is fancy, but not too fancy? What has mass appeal, but still feels special? Before giving up and reaching for [brand] Light, here is a getting started guide based on my experience. Continue reading →