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Sunday, May 01, 2005

Bainbridge Blogger Bash

Venue: Chez Julie and Ted

Cast List (in approx order in which we met)

Mary Hager's Book Mom group reviews books and she amusingly observed that it can be difficult criticizing a book after enjoying the hospitality of someone you know actually enjoyed it. I have no difficulty in being truthful about after the event.

A thoroughly convivial gathering for all the wrong reasons that would shock most bloggers. One of the most pleasant get-togethers I've enjoyed for a very long time and the Leung's are in big trouble now because it won't be long before we'll be dropping leaden hints about a rematch.

Ted and Julie are *the* most relaxed hosts and Julie has a wonderful infectious laugh that Ted should trap on wav. file and place at unsuspecting points on the Seedlings site to keep us awake and happy.

J and I swapped guesses on who actually patrols the Bainbridge Beat.

We all brought "proper" food which our hostess made sure was promptly on the table along with her two soups.

And everyone was so nice and *interesting*.

Name labels were on hand and we were given the chance to introduce ourselves *and* give brief description of the content of our respective blogs. Such a good idea.

I'd planned to take some lessons on Bloglines but that absent dynamo Kevin O'Keefe's Real Lawyers Have Blogs had solved that with his Betterdays posting, so I was much better informed than 2 days ago. I'd have liked to have complimented him in person on that hard-headed site. One of his postings was about being at the LMA conference in Phoenix where a panel of experts on PR and media communications rabbited away without once touching on the need for a law firm to have on staff or consult with a person with a strong knowledge of Internet journalism skills. "Heck," he says, "the panel never mentioned the term blog. It's time for communications professionals serving law firms to wake up, if for no other reason than job preservation."

Good stuff. I once did a stint as teaboy/makee-fetch for various local local legal eagles and forwarded them the link by way of a wake-up call.

Hardware and wi-fi was available but we were having too much fun just talking and I picked up plenty of tips just in conversation.

  • Mike Houser: splendidly ebullient fellow and I could party with him *any* time. We had a good laff about the Darth Vader' blog that he cleverly links to. Mike later produced some amazing slimline gizmo that plays DVDs, washes the car, puts his son to bed with an suitably improving story and goodness knows what all else. Check out the Casdra Software.

    As I said to Mike, thank God I don't have sons to be bullied into lavishing these costly toys. Single-handedly boosting Nordstrom's Xmas stock price by demolishing their inventory of maquillage and skimpy garments is quite enough to be getting on with. (I have daughters, a point I dimly recall once not needing not to add).

    Chip Gibbons: great company. We discussed Absolutely Fabulous and the hugely fanciable Jennifer Saunders as well as 'Bubble', Saffron and, of course, Joanna Lumley as Patsy (for whom I once had the drooling pleasure of toting books when she was one of the judges for the Booker Prize).

    We also fell to discussing Brad Pitt as JD in his Trivial Pursuit appearance in Thelma and Louise, in which neither of us could remember Geena Davis' name and whose literally brief appearance in Tootsie as April Page Chip hadn't spotted.

    I did talk to Philippe Boucher but completely forgot to thank him for including in Ecotalk carpet tycoon Ray Anderson who so impressed me in The Corporation.

    Children: Wonderful company! My soup slurping etiquette was in sore need of improvement so I made sure to sit opposite the only lady with decent table manners, the youngest Leung (2) who watched me like a hawk, ate her soup with perfect technique and was clearly less than impressed by my trencher-man scooping.

    Also, there is yet to be invented a better sound baffle than youngsters at play and any bugs hoping to have picked up on Dave Henry's interesting run-down would have been foiled.

    Ted and I joked about who'd be racing home to file the first blog write-up of the day. Ted mentioned the 21st century skill of "duel editing": you're at a talk, you're taking notes in real time, which the rest of your team is simultaneously editing. I can think of nothing more distracting than a guru du jour delivering his words of wisdom to a roomful of tappers who occasionally look up and across snarl at a disputing colleague. See what fun and funds of information the day was?

    Ted was sporting a manly scar on his arm from singeing himself while trying to tweak the Leung Ferrari. Luckily, my man Giuseppe had parked the Modena just outside and I was able to take Ted thru the finer points of raising mph without quite reducing consumption to 40 yards to the litre.

    Party Favors: I'm sure they weren't dishing them out but when I finally got home there was a can of Guinness in my passenger flap. I did stop off at Safeway and when I emerged there was a bevy of youths hovering around an identical battered gray Volvo next to mine.

    I can only assume that one of them had mistakenly flipped it into *my* jalopy. It was most welcome and made for a genial close to a perfect day.

    See also Julie Leung's more measured write-up, from which I was able to update and correct much of my original data on fellow guests.

    Mike Houser's trackback report here, from which I see I had better file some longer review of HHGTG than my single-sentence dismissal.


  • Comments:
    Sounds like an awful lot of fun, though I maintain that part of the fun of this online stuff is in not knowing the true identities of one's online buds. I actually thought of crashing the fete, but, alas, had to work. I was truly there in spirit.

    BB
     
    Perhaps it helped that, save Julie, I *hadn't* corresponded with the others, just checked out their sites.

    But good heavens, crash the party - spectre at the feast? There would have been my headline.

    Another time. I've just seen Lemony Snicket: if Carrey can don such guises, so can you.
     
    Hey, you have a great blog here! I'm definitely going to bookmark you!

    I have a texas volleyballTee site called Holden Tees. We're a small company and we sell shirts and stuff.

    Come and check it out if you get time

    -Holden Tees
     
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