A little under a year ago, I decided to pack up and move to America’s Playground. The reasons were mainly personal with a tad of professional thrown in. (Yeah, right? Moving to Las Vegas for professional reasons.)

After a few months, though, I uncovered a hidden benefit: Vegas’ vibrant tech community. While it’s no San Francisco (at least yet), there are plenty of smart and tech-savvy cookies here. I’m happy to say that I’ve met a bunch of them:

• Dylan Bathurst is part of the Rumgr team
• Alexia Vernon is a fellow author and speaker
• Clair Byrd works for Delivering Happiness
• Mark Cenicola runs BannerView.com
• Tony Hsieh is, well, Tony Hsieh. No link needed. I gave the rock star a copy of The Age of the Platform a while back.
• John Hawkins runs 9seeds

I’m leaving out more than a few folks but it’s exciting to be a small part of the tech community here.

Vegas, baby. Vegas.