People at WordPress meeting at Gravitate in Des Moines, Iowa

Getting Started with WordPress REST API at Des Moines Meetup (WPDSM)

JavaScript Meetup crew at MetaCommunications in Iowa City, IA

JavaScript Meetup at MetaCommunications on Saint Patrick’s Day in Iowa City

I had a great evening hanging out with a group of diehard JavaScript fans at MetaCommunications on Saint Patrick’s Day! To celebrate, they named this JavaScript meetup “Java O’ Script”! Yes, while others were out drinking just around the corner from us in downtown Iowa City, we were cuddled up talking nerdy! MetaComm supplied the venue for this meetup plus pizza and beer – way to give back to the tech community in Iowa City!

Tonight Mostafa Abdelraouf­ presented his JavaScript project. We also talked about the Slack app and how it handles updates. There was a slight lull in the discussion and we got to know each other and what we do. Learned more about Katelyn Lensch (Iowa Tech Chicks) and her work in REST api and AngularJS 2.0. Then the discussion caught fire and went on until the wee hours of the night! But when you start at 8pm and talk for hours it’s to be expected. I had a fantastic time and am already looking forward to the next event.

From left to right: Aaron Frerichs, Mike Irvine, Seth Adam, Aaron Van Noy, Nate Houstman, Donna Conn and Donna's daughter Kathline Kay Conn at Oyama Sushi & Steakhouse.

Cedar Rapids WordPress meetup group at Oyama Sushi & Steakhouse

Our meetup group (Cedar Rapids WordPress Meetup Group) usually takes place at the Linn Area Community Credit Union/Business Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, but maybe I was supposed to reserve the room? Don White I let you down. My first co-hosting of the wordpress meetup didn’t go as well as I had planned. But like I was trained to do, adapt, overcome, and conquer. And that is exactly what we did. So we all headed to Oyama Sushi & Steakhouse in Cedar Rapids and had the meeting there.

We ended up working on http://simplestrokesmassage.com owned by one of our unexpected guests tonight, Donna Conn, L.M.T. She is a new business owner and needed help with her WordPress website. Let’s just say I think her head was swimming with the pages of notes and information that were jotted down: SEO tips, Plugins to download, Widget help in the footer and Google Analytics was installed by me on that site. Plus much much more!

We always have a blast at these meetups no matter if we have a set plan or we just wing it (like we ended up doing tonight). I originally planned that we would go over the REST API and even posted a video of the REST api & a webinar on angular js andwp REST api on the meetup page. Often when someone comes in needing help we all help out and give them a crash course in what we know.

Side note: If you are looking for a WordPress Meetup in Des Moines, Iowa area be sure to check out the that slack channel. I’m also a member of that group but not a Co-Organizer of that group.