[stuartaxelowen]

You have to pay for meetups in Japan and they are universally worse than the ones in Seattle. Frankly, I love meetups: free food and drink and a chance to hang out with people who like exactly the same stuff? Sign me up!

[hodgesrm]

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.