A nice reality-check
Last night Bonnie and I hung out for a couple of hours with a bunch of people we didn't know. And we had a pretty good time. At the very least, I was delighted to find some people clearly on the same wavelength as I am.
Dave Caolo, who lives on Cape Cod like us and posts over at The Unofficial Apple Weblog, organized a meetup of Twitter users at a local pub. We had a pretty good turnout -- about a dozen people filtered through over a couple of hours -- all of us tech-minded folks who have made Cape Cod our homes, and most of us sick of the status quo -- that it is to say, retired fat-belled, conservative-minded white men dictating the economic policies of this region, working from a template that's at least twenty years out of date and insisting that this area's strength remains as a tourist spot.
It's an interesting dichotomy. The problems of Cape Cod are well documented. It's an incredibly expensive place to live, but there's very little commerce here to support a living wage. There's very little in the way of commerce or industry here on Cape, and many of the jobs that are available are service positions for wealthy people who don't want to pay very much, and want to pay as infrequently as they can get away with (just ask the landscaper we just used, who told us previously that he regularly gets stiffed by our rich neighbors).
Even the regional tech council seems ruled by this arch-conservative mindset. I was complaining to Dave when we first got there last night that I'd written off the council more than a decade ago when I first moved to the Cape and discovered that they were a lot more interested in bolstering the interests of established businesses -- what few there are on the Cape, that is -- than they were in fostering entrepreneurialism. And I heard the same complaints voiced by some of the other folks there too.
What was cool, however, is that we were, for the most part, a gathering of Mac nerds, so we traded some tips and tricks and promised to meet again before too long so we could share more about our experiences.
Plus, the spot where we met is a good place for a night out, featuring live music and lots of brews on tap.