Dinner at El Norteno's

It was a very nice event, with somewhere between 15 and 20 people showing up. There were four or five Envisage folks, as is usually the case, but I was pleasantly surprised by the number of people who showed up that I had no idea who they were! The coolest toy award goes to Felix, who brought along his One Laptop Per Child machine, which was something I had not seen before. I was surprised by how small it was, by how much like a Fisher-Price toy it looked, and on the inside, what a neat little operating system it had. Aargh, but he couldn't demo the wireless connectivity owing to the lack of wifi in the restaurant. For the number of places in Bloomington that provide free wifi, we haven't selected one for a dinner yet.

For the next time, I'll do a little more organizing for space, since I'm pretty confident that no less than 15 will show up - word is starting to spread. One thing I'm struck by is really how little alcohol is being drunk - I had assumed that a place that at least served beer would be essential, but now I'm thinking that the available space and perhaps wifi is more important.

There was at least one comment on the Facebook group suggesting that a weekend date would be better. I've been more of the opinion that people would prefer to spend the weekend hanging out with their friends and family, but maybe I'm wrong. Vote in the poll on the right and tell me what day you'd like to meet for a Geek Dinner.

And don't forget, you only have a week left to sign up for the Bloomington Startup Weekend. I'll see you there!

Geek Dinner Jan. 30th

Come join us Wednesday, Jan. 30th, 6 P.M. for a Geek Dinner at El Norteño on Walnut Street. We'll have some Mexican, a little beer and talk tech - and there's a lot of tech to talk this time around as the Bloomington Startup Weekend will be February 8th - 10th. People will get together and try to create an entire company from start to finish in a single weekend. Should be pretty amazing. What's your idea for what the company should build? Kick around some ideas on the 30th! Hopefully we'll have a wider range of folks than we did last time, but even if we don't I'm not going to let all the folks from a single place sit next to each other this time - you Envisage folks will have to sit next to grad students! Mark it on your calendar, and see you there!