Since I live in Harrisonburg,VA and the 2007 Milblog Conference was being held at the Westin Arlington Gateway hotel in Northern Virginia, I just drove up early this morning to attend the conference.
Except I was running late (lol, this will be No surprise to anyone who knows me:) So, I missed the 'big surprise' of the conference, which was a taped message at the opening from the President! Arghh! What a thing to miss!! I had to come home and find it on the web to see it!
Other than that, the Conference overall was fantastic:) Not only did I learn a lot from all the panels they had, but I also got to meet quite a few people....of course one of the most meaningful to me to meet in person was Patti Patton-Bader,the founder of Soldiers Angels .
I got to see some fellow Soldiers Angels who were at the Face of America bike ride last weekend, like Lynette and Lisa , and one of the Angels I goofed off with at the Metro station mall:) And I also got to meet Laurie of Soldiers Angels New York .
I spent most of the conference trying to spot the Angel who blogs at Cat is my co-pilot ,as we have emailed a lot online and were looking forward to meeting....and darn it! she didn't spot me till the end of the conference, and we only had a few short minutes to talk,as the weather was getting bad and I wanted to start for home!
I really enjoyed meeting the blogger from Chromed Curses ,who came and found me to give me a sticker saying "JP was Here", in honor of the JP at Milblogging.com who wasn't there since he's getting ready to deploy. And I met "SK", who is another longtime supporter of JP. Keith Kawasaki of GX Online introduced himself to me, and said "Aren't you the 'Kasee' who's always commenting on Milblogging.com?" LOL.See what 'commenterrhia' will do for ya?
And I had the privilege of meeting part of JP's family who was there, they were Very nice people.
Another very nice person I spoke with was AF Sister
It was really cool to meet Joe Loong, the AOL Journals Editor :)
I didn't get to speak in person to a Lot of people, but recognized them from afar,lol. They were the 'celebrity milbloggers" and usually surrounded by others and I didn't want to 'gawk' on over and intrude. (And some I Didn't recognize, because even though I've been reading milblogs for over two years, and blogging myself, I'm not sure who some of these people are by sight alone, if I didn't get close enough to read their name tags.)
(And I never did run across Steve Field from The D-Ring , darn!)
But I Did get to speak several times with Sean Dustman from Doc in the Box , and his wife....they were as nice in person as they have been online:)
The conference was every bit as exciting as I expected, and I am so happy that I got to meet the people that I Was able to meet! Always so nice to meet in person those you have spent sometimes years talking with online:)
And an unexpected surprise (and delight) for me was to approach a recovering wounded soldier that I had sent several cards and notes to, and have Him recognize Me and give me a Hug. (See what being a member of Soldiers Angels will do for ya? :)
All in all, a great day, and my utmost thanks to Andi for starting the Milblog Conference last year, and making it happen again this year.
(Update 5/6/07, now that I'm not so tired,lol.)
Since I was running late yesterday, I managed to leave at home both my copy of
The Blog of War by Matthew Currier Burden (which I had intended to take to get perhaps Matt,the author, or some of those who had posts in the book, to sign. Arggh!)
AND my baby gift for the newborn daughter of DJ Emery and his wife,Leslie .But I do want to assure you that there was a table piled High with gifts ,forgot to mention that last night.
(Does it seem like I was flustered yesterday morning at "O'Dark Thirty"? lol.)
Lastly, I Fully appreciate the irony of having a disposable camera at a Blogging conference,ROFL, but I don't have a digital:)
Again, it was a wonderful experience yesterday !
5 comments:
Of course it was great seeing you too! Of course we would be nice in person:) You should have seen us all laughing when Andi said "and for our opening address here is The President of the United States". Most of us thought it was a joke (being milbloggers), you could have felt the jaws dropping as he started talking.
So cool!
I am so GLAD you had a good time...you and all of the milbloggers do such a dear dear service. May Father Vincent Capodanno bless you ALL and I hope you get just SHOWERED with roses from heaven......Love, Leslie
That "JP was HERE" thing was all SK's big project. I just had those in my purse when I ran into you and knew you'd get a kick out of what we were doing. It was great to have met you and I'm sooooooooo sorry you saw my ugly side. ;-)
LOL,LL.....What 'ugly side'? That was just the standard response of anyone to "idiotism". ROFL.
Kathi
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