I like meetups as well. The Bay Area meetups covering data management tend to be pretty worthwhile--both the content as well as the opportunity to geek out wit

I like meetups as well. The Bay Area meetups covering data management tend to be pretty worthwhile--both the content as well as the opportunity to geek out with fellow nerds. Open source projects in general have a good sharing ethos that works well with the meetup format. Plus it's pretty important to keep up contacts just in things go sideways at your current gig.