BlogHer Boston - so worth it!

After I shut down he computer Saturday night, I took a bath. I haven’t taken one in years - life has made me a shower person. I poured some Bath & Body Works “Sleep” Aromatherapy bubbly stuff under the faucet, and when the water was deep enough, I sank into the tub.

I was nervous. I was hoping I’d have someone to talk to. Mostly, I was hoping that I didn’t waste all of that money. So as I tried to plug the dripping faucet with my toe, I visualized a fantastic, inspiring and FUN conference.

And it so was! (Holy crap! That visualization thing WORKS?) There were two “tracks” to choose from, along with an all-day Geek Lab that you could drop into at any time. I picked the sessions that comprised the Beginners’ Track. Even with five years of blogging under my belt, I felt I could always learn more.

The sessions were:

• Blogging Basics: I Blog, Therefore I Am… figuring out your blogging mojo
• Blogging Basics: 6 Steps to Personalize, Polish & Promote Your Blog
• Blogging Basics: Managing Information Overload: How to find your blogging community

The sessions were fantastic. I took away many ideas I can use for both ladygypsy.net, but for my World of Warcraft blog as well. This old girl (the blog, not me, thankyouverymuch) could use a bit of spit and polish.

Not a redesign, but a refocusing. I don’t have to change what I write about, but I can put a little more thought into my posts and not make each one a massive brain-dump. I can categorize and tag my subject matter better. I can throw up my hands in surrender and FINALLY put my contact info on here.

But if the sessions didn’t exist at all, I’d have STILL paid the conference fee just to mingle with the attendees. Many were just like me - yappy on a keyboard but a bit shy socially. Get a bunch of geeky shy women together, and soon we’re laughing and talking like we were old friends. There were so many stories to hear and so many women brimming with ideas and potential. Some were just starting out. Others were literally changing their world AND ours via their writing. You’d have to be dead not to walk away inspired.

And the food was by FAR the best food I had ever consumed at a meeting. Usually, your afternoon snack at a meeting is a cup of M&Ms. We had hot soft pretzels, mini corn dogs, cups of trail mix AND ice cream bars. Top that!

The ride back on Sunday was uneventful and MUCH shorter. I hit the local Starbucks at 7:55am. I was on the road by 8:15am, and was home by 2:30pm with only one 15-minute break in Connecticut and a bit of a delay in the Bronx. Having listened to all my saved podcasts on the way to Boston, I sang along to the Mama Mia soundtrack almost the entire way home with a break for Sugarland. (It took almost 2 full plays of “Genevieve” to get me across the George Washington Bridge.)

It was so worth the trip and the money.

Here’s a list of some of the wonderful women I met - I’ll be adding them to my sidebar in a “BlogHer Boston” section.

Alicia - Oh2122
Busy Bee Lifestyle
Candelaria - CandelariaSilva.com
Dawn - Coming to a Nursery Near You and My Tasty Space
Diva Toolbox
Dina - This Marriage Thing
Dorene - Occasional Rambling
Elisa - Elisa Camahort’s Personal Weblog
Goddess in Progress
Jory - Pause
Kerri - Six Until Me
Kristy - She Just Walks Around With It
Laurie - Laurie Writes
Liz - Inventing My Life
Marie - Boston Bibliophile
Maris - In Good Taste
Megan - A Girl Must Shop
Megan - Megan’s Minute
Sally - Sex and the Knitty
Suzanne - Off the Beaten (Subway) Track: New York’s Best Unusual Attractions

And my destination makes it worth the while
Pushing through the darkness still another mile
I believe in angels
Something good in everything I see
I believe in angels
When I know the time is right for me
I’ll cross the stream - I have a dream

Posted at: 9:29 pm in General, Kim v. 3.0, Webkeeping | Permanent Link | 7 Comments - add yours! »
Tags: blogging, blogher, blogher boston

When will our eyes meet…When can I touch you?

(lyrics from Barry Manilow’s Weekend in New England. Get it?)

10:50am - leave home
10:54am - fill up gas tank. 10.2 gallons at $2.85 a gallon is $29.17
10:57am - stop at WaWa for $4.40 worth of coffee and snacks
11:05am - hit the road
2:00pm - stop at the Connecticut Welcome Station for liquid intake and outflow
4:42pm - STILL IN CONNECTICUT…there were 8 mile long bumper to bumper delays all through the state. Am despondent. Stop at another rest center for outflow and leg-stretching
7:04pm - arrive at hotel EIGHT hours later, for a trip that Google said would take about 5.5 hours.

Oh well. The hotel is nice, and the bed is comfy, so I don’t care.

Travel observations:

• North Jersey smells bad. If you think Jersey is stinky and ugly, I implore you to take a trip to South Jersey. We have trees and parks and beaches that don’t smell like feet.
• Seven years later, the NYC skyline is still unfamiliar to me since the WTC isn’t there. Eff you, bin Laden and eff Bush for losing sight of that goal.
• I hate driving over bridges. I realized that as I was stuck in bumper to bumper traffic on the George Washington Bridge. I did wave a quick hello to Dr. Dave and Ani while I was praying the bridge wouldn’t collapse from under me.
• The autumn foliage was gorgeous, which is what kept me from cutting myself while I was idling in Connecticut. I’m talking “scene on a 1000 piece puzzle” pretty - especially when I was stopped over rivers.
• Every state has a welcome sign. Massachusetts’ sign had a turkey on it.
• The logo for the Massachusetts Turnpike is a pilgrim hat.
• I saw at least 2 signs in Massachusetts welcoming home the troops. Classy!

In retrospect, I should have gone to the BlogHer in Washington DC since it’s much closer. But I get to add Connecticut and Massachusetts to my paltry list of states I’ve visited.

Tomorrow’s the conference Please somebody please talk to me tomorrow. and Sunday is the ride home. Which I’m SURE will be shorter. I’m off Monday to recuperate.

Posted at: 10:01 pm in General, Play | Permanent Link | 2 Comments - add yours! »
Tags: blogher boston, travel

Friday Five: Hacked!

Happy Friday! I’m off today so you get a special mid-morning blog post!

Here’s this week’s Friday Five: HACKED!

1. When did someone last break something of yours?
On Labor Day, in the Peddler’s village parking lot, someone backed into my car. He scratched the heck out of my driver’s side rear panel, but left a note with his name/phone number. I was a bonehead and decided to do the “right” thing and go through GEICO. They were happy to pursue, and since I pay them heaps of cash each year, I was happy to let them. So I sat back and waited for them to tell me what to do next.

Unfortunately, the guy won’t deal with them at all, preferring to pay me out of pocket. So now I have to call this guy and go through heaps of extra inconvenience. If I go outside of GEICO, I don’t get the rental car coverage or anything that I, you know, pay for. If I deal with him out of pocket and go through GEICO, he’s going to have to pony up at least my $500 deductible and my rates will go up anyway, right?

Not to mention, he probably hates my guts for going to my insurance company in the first place. And I hate confrontation. So bleah.

2. When did you last play hackysack, if ever?
Never!

3. What was your most dramatic haircut like?
Back in college I had it really short, to the point where it was wedgy-looking in the back, and the stylist actually had to take clippers to the back of my neck for strays. I wore a baseball cap for months.

4. Hacking is basically breaking through the security that protects a computer or a website. What’s the closest you’ve come to doing something similar in real life?
Somebody here in my building never changed their default wireless router settings. So the network name is linksys and the password is admin. So I use their wireless connection from time to time.

5. In the world of stand-up comedy, a hack is a comic who steals jokes from other comics. Have you ever known a hack in your own field?
I’m a web designer! We’re all hacks! We always go online for snippets of code to solve problems, or for free javascript to do neat things.

~~~
Did you know that next week is October? Even after my planned days off — 2 for Boston/Blogher*, 3 for trip to see WM’s family in Michigan, 1 for Black Friday — I still have 5 days left. Our vacation days don’t roll over (and really, who knows if we’ll all be employed by December anyway?) so I decided to take today off. As usual, it’s crappy out. But I’m headed out to lunch with a friend, and will swing by Target afterward. So I’ll get my puttering in.

~~~
This Sunday, weather permitting, we’ll be at the Pennsauken Fall Festival (PDF). It promises the three “Cs” of a successful outdoor event, crafts, classic cars, and carny food. Okay, that’s four.

Have a wonderful weekend!

*I’m terrified about this. I won’t know anybody there, and I get very shy around people I don’t know. I feel like I need to be there though.

Posted at: 10:25 am in Family/Friends, General, Play, Work | Permanent Link | 1 Comment - add yours! »
Tags: blogher, blogher boston, friday five, fun, Work