With air travel prices recently dropping in the U.S., you can score a bunch of round-trip flights for down in the $100-200 range. Try and pair with someone in a qualifying city. Seattle folks can make it down to Oakland for $190. New Yorkers can hit Boston or Florida for about a hundred bucks.

Find your city and ask around on the #ruby-lang or #rubyonrails channels. Find out if anyone will receive you and code with you. If you live in a major city, offer to host a few guests and head up the codefest. With $500 you could fly in two or three.

So here’s a point-blank suggestion for you. New York Rubyists should fly in William Morgan and get a tracker library built for his BitTorrent lib. He’s in Boston and he’s a tremendously helpful guy. Started Hobix hacking all the sudden without provocation.

If you live in Oakland, fly in Eric Hodel or Ryan Davis. If you live in L.A, fly in Ara Howard or Jamis Buck to help. Aredridel is in Colorado, right? Get her out.

Sorry, Gavin Sinclair. $500 isn’t going to make a dent in your strandedness.