Let me explain this a bit. Being dad of three girls is a great joy, but it’s also expensive. My wallet has a problem saying no to any of them. It’s not that I can’t afford a ticket. The case is that I’d never actually PAY for a ticket.
But the more that I see my WordPress journey evolving, the more I think it’s time I attended a LoopConf.
As you can see from the TreeHouse badges over yonder, I’m blazing through the modules at lightning speed. (And I’ve only signed up for TreeHouse less than a month ago) Ya see, about 7 years ago I was the “install a theme and install plugins” type of person. Now, I’m into page templates, the WP_Query loop, hardcore Woo, and the core WordPress components.
But I have yet to ‘arrive’ to the point of being able to finally connect all of these into something that I built, that I created.
I’ve contributed when I can, I’ve helped when I see others struggling, I can sometimes code a solution, but I haven’t yet arrived at the point where I can see a problem and ~boom~ crank out the solution with utmost speed (and confidence in my code).
What money I do earn from my work always goes to the girls. Always. No boat, no fancy pickup / cool car, no crazy ‘man toys’. I’m just a Simple Man. Here, let’s play some cool tunes while we finish up reading this post.
Got it playing? Ok, cool. So, why do I want to go?
I don’t really care about Vegas. The swag looks cool, but – truthfully – I hate going conferences and carrying around a bunch of ‘stuff’. No really – hands are meant for shaking, writing, coding, and eating – not swag. The hotel looks nice, but I’ll take my 26 acres, bulls, dogs, cats, and goats (well maybe not the goats, I’m thinking they need to go) over a hotel in Vegas any day & every day. I want to go because of the people and the experience.
From Wednesday to Friday, I’d plan to be eyeball deep in being a sponge to absorb as much as possible. Don’t get me wrong, I might already know and understand everything that the session is going over, but remember, I have yet to actually apply any of it yet.
What I need to surround myself with are the folks who are already applying all of this knowledge and find / see / watch / learn how to take the knowledge and correctly put it into real world applicable situations. From the media to the api, I “get” it, but now I need to see how to “do” it.
I think it’d be a great experience. But would I ever pay for the tickets myself? Sure! But right now, I really do have a lot of other budgetary priorities besides ….’me’. But before I go, lemme drop another tug-at-your-heart-strings-photo.
Regardless of who y’all pick, thanks for putting the call out there.