Since I started at b5media back in October, I truly am experiencing a completely different way of living my life. I mean, I work from wherever I want to, I keep the hours I want to, and I interact with people that are so anti-corporate. More of my life revolves around entrepreneurs and not cube rats. My role is one of influence as opposed to that of being a follower. I travel now, generally once a month, and in general have a more diverse life.

Part of my life as it is now involves conferences and gatherings. I often meet with bloggers and local entrepreneurs as just “par for the course”. But I now have the ability to attend events. And that is something I really, really enjoy. Some of the events I enjoy more than others and others I sadly just cope with. Since last year, I’ve been at WordCamp in San Francisco and Ad:Tech in NYC. The latter is one that I “cope with”. This year, I’ve got a couple events on the calendar already including SXSWi this weekend. I also anticipate attending Mesh in Toronto and Blog World Expo in Las Vegas later in the year.

The big one for the year for me, though, is SXSW. But there’s another one shortly behind – one that probably is not essential to b5media, so it will be one that, if I attend will be of my own design. That is Gnomedex. I really like Chris Pirillo – moreso now as we’ve interacted a fair bit recently and from everything I read, Gnomedex is the epitome of small workshop in a big conference (or is it unconference?) format. And of course, Pirillo is such a ball of entertaining energy, I imagine Gnomedex is just plain fun.

Of course, I need to somehow get my wife to sign off on the $400 plane ticket and $500 entrance fee – but if I can do that, I wonder who else will be there. If you’re planning on attending Gnomedex, please let me know in the comments.