We have week of winter weather ahead of us here in Washington, DC with cold temperatures, a bit of snow, and a lot of cold rain. That means that getting home after work is, well, going to suck. Why not sneak into a warm bar for a tech event to avoid the rush and learn some new tricks? Below are our meetup picks of the week. You can find a full listing of what’s happening this week in technology here.

Monday, January 26

7:00 – 8:30 pm

Internet Technology in the Obama Age: Helping People Change Government: John Hopkins University is hosting a discussion by several high profile technologists – Joe Trippi, Washington Post’s Jose Antonio Vargas, Facebook’s Adam Conner, and the Sunlight Foundation’s Greg Elin, on how online participation can change the government under the new administration.

Tuesday, January 27

6:00 – 8:00 pm

DC PHP Beverage Subgroup Meeting: This one is just what is sounds like – a chance for PHP developers to get together over some beers. Don’t expect any presentations, training, or sales pitches – just beer and code talk.

7:00 – 9:00 pm

Dorkbot DC: At this monthly meeting of engineers, tinkerers, and artists, sculptor James Mallos will talk about two interactive art sculptures: one a BEAMbot that survives on gallery illumination and the other a live video applications that lets people create original repeating patterns and put them out in the public domain.

Thursday, January 29

6:30 pm

Social Rockstar Happy Hour: Come out to Lotus Lounge to meet others working in new media. This networking happy hour will focus specifically on financing social media projects, new technology in the social web world, and life at start ups these days.

See you out this week!