Story time:

I like to play life on hard mode sometimes. It’s more fun.

Or.. I’m just lazy.

I’ve been planning to go to this conference called Confluence
for months. It’s health and freedom themed and OUTDOORS.

And it worked perfectly with my schedule. @Laura 🌞 would be on a retreat with @Miel and @Isamar during the same dates. I’d be going to the states for Btc Vegas, so I thought it’d be fun & productive to go to an outdoor conference before Vegas.

I never did book a ticket, because I figured I could just book one at the door.

Im allergic to planning and love to leave room for magic or other opportunities to come through.

I booked my flight to Texas about a week prior to the conference and upon reaching the airport in Costa Rica I decided to finally book my ticket for the conference.

I get to the website and I see it’s sold out..

I see their Instagram and see a post from a couple days prior saying they sold out.

I hit them up and they said, “bro, we’re like totally sold out”.

I said congrats and went to the telegram groups to attempt to find a ticket. I hopped on a plane frantically refreshing my telegram debating calling an audible and going somewhere else.

Landed in Houston, no response from anyone. Overheard someone saying there was snow in mammoth, called my sister and thought about going snowboarding.

Thought to myself “no paul, you gotta go to this thing. you’ve been talking about it for months”.

Hopped on the flight to San Antonio, landed, and still nothing from anyone.

A conf ticket was just one piece to the puzzle. The venue was an hour away, so I needed a car or transport. The shuttles already sold out to get to the ranch.

So there I am at the airport checking flights to go somewhere else (there were none) and really questioning my decision making.

To complicate matters much further, I recently lost my drivers license. That means no renting Turos or cars.

I ALMOST hacked that by filing for a lost license and getting a temp one. I had a glimmer of hope when an agent was like “fuck it” and started putting me in the system. I needed to print the temp license, but it disappeared from my phone with no way to recover thanks to the amazing ca dmv website.

No car was rented and I could not get another temp.

Feeling completely useless, I booked an Airbnb next to a rock climbing gym and figured I’d just have a weekend in a new city.

I woke up in the morning still determined to get to the conference somehow.

Walked around waiting and scheming. I even asked a guy if he wanted to trade my Airbnb for his car for a couple days 😂

Around Mid morning some luck started to come through.

The one person I knew got some service and got back to me saying he had a day pass. So I had to get there somehow. I even asked nostr if someone could help out.

Finally, a message on telegram came through about full weekend tickets AND a ride. I said yes and yes and was shortly on my way.

At this point I still have no clue where I’ll stay, how I’ll get around, or how I’ll get back. I originally wanted to camp on site but… that sold out.

I show up and am quickly recognized by a dude, Dan, who knows @Tristan 🌞⚡️. He immediately offered me a place to stay!

Then @Madi & @basic human stuff show up. All of whom mentioned @Sourcenode so I had to take a photo and send it to him.

I couldn’t believe it, and definitely got the sense I was in the right place.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading. I’m sure there’s a lesson in there.

This conference was awesome. Would be cool to see more bitcoiners and nostr people in these circles. There were a few. @Manish @Johanna @Derrick Broze

Pretty positive I’ll be here again next year, hope to see some more of yall.

Now heading to Vegas to see many more familiar friendly faces.

pv

https://www.confluenceevent.com