Hello all,<br><br>MANY THANKS TO GRIG<br><div>I want to thank Grig Gheorghiu for his years of dedication and hard work maintaining this group. He's an amazing engineer, educator, and leader and has been an incredible asset to the Python community. His was the first tutorial I ever attended at PyCon, and I still use his lessons five years later. If you meet Grig, buy him a drink!<div>
<br></div><div>SCHEDULING</div><div>A number of people have been asking me about the next two months. Between SCALE 11X and PyCon US 2013, large blocks of the month are now blocked out, but people still want local meetups! In February we'll meet on the 21st (right before SCALE 11X) and in March we'll tentatively meet on the 28th (right after PyCon US). Talks and location are forthcoming.</div>
<div><br></div><div>In addition, how would people feel about a second SoCal Python night every month? My thought is starting in April we could have a hack-night where people would gather in one place for pizza and the chance to code together. You could bring your favorite project, open source or not, and hack together with friends. </div>
<div><br></div><div>TOPICS</div><div>We're looking for speakers for both February and March. It would be great to see talks on Python topics such as iterators, generators, decorators, metaprogramming, Twisted, big data, SQL Alchemy, logging, and of course, web frameworks such as Django, Flask, and Tornado. If you know something awesome, share it with the group! We prefer 30-40 minute talks, with Q&A sessions at the end.</div>
<div><br></div><div>VENUE</div><div>A huge number of people have suggested that SoCal Python rotate between general locations - migrating from Downtown to Santa Monica to Hollywood to Marina Del Ray. As someone coming from the Valley, I agree but we'll need to find venues willing to host 50-100 people.</div>
<div><br></div><div>SCALE 11X</div><div>Next month is the 11th annual Southern California Linux Exposition (<a href="http://www.socallinuxexpo.org/scale11x">http://www.socallinuxexpo.org/scale11x</a>). It's an awesome local event that is very affordable. We run the Python booth there and will be looking for volunteers. What that means is signing up for a period where you hang around the table for a few hours and talk with people interested in Python. It's a ton of fun and I'll have a sign-up form within a day or two.</div>
<div><br></div><div>PYCON US 2013</div><div>In March is PyCon (<a href="https://us.pycon.org/2013/">https://us.pycon.org/2013/</a>). It's the largest Python conference in the world. There are amazing tutorials, talks, and sprints. If you plan to go, please register now because it sells out! </div>
<div><br></div><div><div>SHAMELESS PLUG</div><div>I co-wrote wrote a book on Django! It's called Two Scoops of Django: Best Practices for Django 1.5, and you can buy it right now in e-book (PDF) form on the website: <a href="https://django.2scoops.org">https://django.2scoops.org</a>. </div>
</div><div><br></div><div>Kind regards,</div><div><br></div><div><div>-- <br>'Knowledge is Power'<br><span style="font-size:13px;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">Daniel Greenfeld</span><br style="font-size:13px;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
<span style="font-size:13px;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">Principal at Cartwheel Web; co-author of Two Scoops of Django</span><div style="font-size:13px;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
<a href="http://cartwheelweb.com/" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)" target="_blank">cartwheelweb.com</a> | <a href="http://pydanny.com/" target="_blank">pydanny.com</a> | <a href="http://django.2scoops.org/" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)" target="_blank">django.2scoops.org</a></div>
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