In the tradition of all old New Yorkers, my wife and I are planning to head south for part of the year to escape the cold northeast winters. I thought climate change would have saved me from this fate, but here we are. We shall now be known as "snowbirds." A more depressing description involves viewing the entire Sunshine State as an elephant's graveyard.

That's why I found myself in the Tampa Bay area in June, which is not peak tourist season. It is really hot and humid. When I got lost driving yesterday I briefly turned on the location on my graphene pixel (I know, what's the point of graphene if I turn on location?) to use organic maps. I discovered on the Orange Club app that there was a bitdev meetup scheduled that night in St. Petersburg. I had a few hours to kill, so I decided check it out. My wife thought I was nuts, but that's not unusual.

The drive from Tampa to St. Pete was beautiful. The bay area has a few long causeways connecting the three cities in the area. You drive for miles across Tampa Bay. Before I left, I read a little about the Bitcoin Bay Foundation and a guy named @bennyhodl. Mr. Hodl flew back and forth to Austin Bitdevs for eight straight months before creating Tampa Bitdevs in 2022. I wonder if he knows @k00b and @Car? He founded Bitcoin Bay Foundation as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organiztion in January 0f 2022.

According to the web site of the foundation:

We are a nonprofit organization focusing on education, local business, and community service.

I particularly like the focus on building a bitcoin circular economy in the Tampa Bay area. I wish I had the time to check out local businesses that accept bitcoin.

I followed my Organic Maps app and made my way to a place called the Tampa Bay Innovation Center, which was re-named spARK Labs by ARK Invest. I didn't know it at the time, but this is Cathie Woods' investment company.

I arrived about 20 minutes early at a modern office building located in a lively part of downtown St. Petersburg. Florida is for the most part devoid of character, but St. Petersburg is an exception. I was stopped at the entrance to the office building by an armed security guard who asked me for my invitation. I told him that I was just here for the bitdev meetup. He demanded my qr code. I pulled out my phone and showed him the Orange Club App event announcement. He looked at it, gave me a full pat down search, then let me in. He told me to go to the second floor.

I thought I was early, but the giant conference room on the second floor was packed. I couldn't believe the turnout. There were two speakers in the middle of a presentation. I found an empty seat way in the back. I quickly realized that these people weren't talking about bitcoin. It turns out that this was a shark tank style sales pitch to get funding for a startup. I was in the wrong place.

I left the room and explored the other floors. I found a fellow wanderer who had that bitcoin look (beard, t shirt and shorts) and followed him.

We eventually found the Bitcoin Foundation office on the third floor co-work space. I liked the feel of the place. There was a scheduling problem, so the bitdev meetup would be held in a much smaller room on the third floor. It was a good thing, too, because the turnout was sparse-only six of us to hear the presenter. Everyone else knew each other. I was the only newcomer. They wanted to know how I got into the building. I told them the strange tale. They were a friendly group. The leader, Colin, was wearing a really nice Bitcoin Bay baseball jersey. I want one, but they are not for sale in the merch store. Colin is the principal software engineer for Synota, a company that provides LN payments for the energy industry.

Colin then gave a very useful presentation about the various ways to connect a lightning node to other applications, discussing NWC, LNbits, macaroons, and proxies. He usied a payment app he is currently building to highlight benefits and deficiencies of each type of connection. I really enjoyed it. To be completely honest, I'm not sure how interested my fellow attendees were. They all seemed to want to talk about Hermes, an AI agent that Colin uses in his work. Colin obviously was also enthusiastic about Hermes. I got the strong sense that bitcoin was the meal your parents forced you to eat, while everyone was waiting for the AI dessert to be served. The second half of the meetup was all AI.

That was a little depressing, but I admit I enjoyed the AI talk myself.

At the end of the session someone handed out oranges, and I began my return journey. Since I will be returning to the Tampa Bay area pretty regularly for the foreseeable future, I hope to get to know the community better. A quick look at BTC maps seems to show that their merchant outreach may be paying off. The turnout was small, but it was a very hot day in the middle of a bear market, so I won't draw any conclusions from this one event.