I’ve been having a lot of fun learning about and switching over to Ruby over the last month from PHP. As a part of this process, I’ve started to get a sense for the lay of the land of the Ruby community in Boulder.

Meetups

• Ruby Code & Coffee: A weekly meetup on Wednesdays at 8:30am. According to the Boulder Tech Calendar … “Get together with some other rubyists in the area to write some code, share stories, and swap ideas.”
• Boulder Ruby: Educational talks on Ruby, Rails, or other general programming topics at the Collective Intellect offices. Click the link for more info.

Dev Shops

• dojo4 is a Boulder based dev and design collective. They say it best themselves – “We will send ninjas.”
• Foraker: I haven’t had a chance to meet anyone from the Foraker team yet, but it seems they focus on Ruby/Rails development as one aspect of their full service offering.
• Quick Left is a web engineering firm helping young and established companies alike build and improve their products. (Disclosure: I am employed by Quick Left.)

Conferences

• Mountain.rb Conference is a new single-track event being held this fall around the same time as boco and Startup Week. This should be awesome!

I’m excited to start checking out some of these events and meetups, and will hopefully meet some new Boulder people along the way. Let me know if you have anything to add to the list!

UPDATE: If you’re interested in learning Ruby, make sure to check out the hilarious _why’s Poignant Guide to Ruby

It’s been about two years since I moved to Boulder from Ohio. After being here for a few months, I wrote a review of what was going on in Boulder and interesting me then. Notice that little link at the bottom? That’s right – a 2008 vintage boulder.me link.

At the time of that article, I was just getting settled in to town and finding things to keep me busy. I found that I loved the collaborative scene at all the local coffee shops. I still love the access to an unimaginable number of outdoor activities. Getting out and meeting people was as easy as finding events based around things you liked, showing up, and saying hi. Show people that you want to learn about and help them, and in Boulder, they’ll reciprocate.

I’d say the hardest part for me in getting acclimated to Boulder was finding the right work-life balance. Here, it can be easy to get distracted and bumble around, especially when you see a LOT of people doing enjoyable things during what normally would be a workday. When I got my first job, I found it via Craigslist, which I decided is not an ideal way to look for jobs you want to care about. Alternatively, I’d recommend doing the things you love with other people who feel the same way. Eventually, you’ll figure out how to make ends meet and you’ll be doing it with a rockin’ Boulder crew.

So, what’s keeping me here these days? Here are a few recent, reoccurring, or upcoming events that are just some of the reasons I’m still here in Boulder and why you should come too:

Boulder Startup Week – The first week of May this year, we had an unbelievable set of events. People opened up their offices for co-working, Ignite 10 happened, there were hikes, there were beers, and there were some excellent discussions.

Boulder Open Coffee Club – This was one of the first events I attended in Boulder. A semimonthly meeting of all sorts of entrepreneurs, professionals, lawyers, developers, etc., BOCC has taken up residence in Atlas Purveyors and continued to grow in numbers. Come join!

Ignite Boulder – The proportions of Ignite have grown epic since their humble beginnings a few years back. Number 11 will be pretty special as it is being held at the historic Chautauqua Auditorium nestled up against the mountains. Grab a ticket!

TEDxBoulder – Coming up on August 7th, TEDx is a community organized local event in the spirit of TED. Can’t wait to hear more about this event.

This is only the tip of the iceberg. What events strike your fancy? What helps keep you in Boulder? What are some of your tips for getting involved?