Personal Choices

We all make choices. The fact that I’m living in Reykjavik right now, much closer than I’ve ever knowingly been to an active volcano, clearly demonstrates how I would have answered the quiz above.

Before we moved here, I made the choice to reach out to JavaScripters from Iceland. I found two teams competing in NodeKnockout from Reykjavik. One of the teams had a rich profile that linked me to a developer group which linked me to a company homepage which linked me to an email address. To my surprise, a reply game.

That choice was rewarded. I was pointed to their Facebook Node.js group, which I joined, despite my vocal and often hostile treatment of Facebook’s UI. When I moved here in December, the same day I arrived, I made another choice–possibly even more outgoing than the first. I walked 2 km to one of the group’s meetups.

Again, I was rewarded. Good pizza, lousy beer, and an excited, knowledgeable, and timely community of programmers. I will probably present something to the group before I leave and I hope to make contacts that will facilitate idea-sharing across borders when I go home.

Afterall, we have something in common: we code near an active volcano.