Category: BlogHer

I left for Blogher early Thursday morning last week and arrived in San Jose around 1:00 p.m.  On the shuttle to the Hyatt, I met my first blogger of the trip, Megan Garnhum.  As the van pulled into the resort parking lot, we spotted Heather Armstrong, whose identity we easily confirmed by the bandage on her arm.  We talked about how weird it was that we knew so much about someone neither of us had ever met. The other people on the shuttle probably thought we were insane.

The instant I stepped off the shuttle, I ran into Eden Kennedy and Alice Bradley.  I was wearing the "Writing well is the best revenge" shirt I’d bought from Mrs. Kennedy last year, so it was the perfect icebreaker for introducing myself.  While I chatted with them and other people (sorry I can’t I.D. you – it was all kind of a blur), a hand shot through the pack and I heard a voice say, "Hi, I’m Heather."

It was Heather Armstrong.  I introduced myself and didn’t say, "Duh, as if I don’t know that!"

Within the first hour I was there, I also ran into Amy Storch, Yvonne DiVita and Susan Getgood.

Almost everyone I talked to initially was an official conference speaker, so they were headed to some shindig to which I wasn’t invited.  I was really hungry, so I had an excruciatingly slow meal in the hotel restaurant and wandered around the grounds of the resort for a while trying to decide what to do with myself for the rest of the day.

When it got closer to dinner time, people started gathering near the pool.  I met Kyle Karl (sorry – I don’t know why I kept getting your name goofed up) from Secondhand Tryptophan, SueBob from Red Stapler, Jane of By Jane, and Marjorie from MeeVee (among many others).  I had a chance to greet Toby Bloomberg for a moment before she left for the speaker dinner.

The poolside group eventually scooted a bunch of tables together and ordered dinner as more and more people arrived and joined the group.  I got to meet Mocha Momma (whose name is actually Kelly), Patricia of Join Me in Snarkville and lots of other people whose names escaped me once I mixed their business cards in with the rest of the pile.

Speaking of business cards, I had stupidly forgotten to load up on them before I left my office on Wednesday, so I had barely more than a dozen to pass out.  I ended up writing my name and contact information on notebook paper for most of the weekend.

The early birds finished out Thursday evening trying, mostly in vain, to get drinks from the understaffed hotel bar.  I gave up around 10:00 p.m. (midnight, as far as my body was concerned) and went to bed.

In preparation for BlogHer, I’m answering some "get to know me" questions sent by Kt:

1. When did you start blogging and why? 
I started Average Jane in early 2004 after a couple false starts with H2G2 and Diaryland in the early 2000s.  I did it because I love the idea of being able to journal my life for my own purposes and share it with interested others at the same time. 

I’ve officially started my Countdown to BlogHer.  I’ll arriving in San Jose on Thursday, July 27th around 1:00 p.m. and my goal is to spend the rest of the day hanging out with every blogger I can find.

Taking my cue from Alice, I want to know if you will be there and if you’ll say "hi" to me.  I promise I’ll wear my Average Jane shirt the first day so I’ll be easier to recognize.  Actually, these days I look more like my caricature than I have in years.  Well, my hair does anyway – I’m not quite that skinny, though.

After the first day, you’ll have to look for me by the hair and name badge.  I only have the one shirt and if I play my cards right I’ll have spilled a drink on it by the time I go to bed on Thursday night.

I know I keep going on and on about BlogHer, but it’s just because I can’t wait to go again.  Registration opened today for what will be a two-day event this year.  I’m planning on going to both days and it looks as though Cagey may join me again, and maybe Dorothy as well.  Woohoo!

I put some of last year’s BlogHer knowledge to use in a meeting on Monday.  We were discussing well-known corporate blogs and I kept thinking to myself, "I met a lot of the people responsible for those blogs at BlogHer – how cool is that?!"

I’m going to try to spread out the expense a little bit by watching the plane fares and BlogHer registration cutoff closely. 

So, are you planning on going?

On Sunday after BlogHer, Cagey and I had a lot of time to kill before our flight.  Niall Kennedy ("quivering voices"? Come on!) of Technorati had told us about the Computer History Museum and we wanted to go there, but it’s not open on Sundays.

After a quick breakfast at IHOP, we settled for a trip to the San Jose Flea Market.  It’s been in business since 1960 and covers 120 acres, so you know they have the whole flea market thing down to a science.  They also get major kudos for having very nice bathrooms.

We weren’t really shopping for anything in particular, so we wandered around looking at stuff until the repetition overwhelmed us.  If I’d been in a different mood, I might have taken advantage of the fact that the San Jose Flea Market appears to be the hoochie mama garment capital of the world.  I’d likely have bought one or two cute tops under other circumstances (particularly if any of them had been made from some sort of natural fiber).  We were also impressed with the variety of fresh produce, but neither of us was inclined to drag any of it on an airplane.

After we tired of the flea market, we decided that we needed to do a brief techie geek tour of the area.  We took pictures of TiVo headquarters, figuring we shouldn’t pass up the chance, just in case.

Even after all that, we ended up at the airport way before our flight.  The security line actually stretched out into the parking garage, but it moved pretty swiftly.  Once in the terminal, I people-watched to amuse myself, occasionally taking photos of people who stood out in some way (and weren’t facing me).  Here’s my little tip for low-rise jeans wearers:  don’t sit on the floor.  Just don’t.

The one topic that came up in conversation over and over was how glad we were that we’d gone to BlogHer.  I’ve been taking the week to absorb the experience more fully so I can discuss my impressions in more detail.  That’ll be tomorrow’s post.  Update:  After filling out the post-BlogHer survey and reading a zillion blog entries about the event, I think I’m talked out about it for now.

Before and after BlogHer, Cagey and I spent some time in the area doing other fun stuff.

We flew into San Jose separately on Friday afternoon and met up at the airport.  It was past our lunchtime, so as soon as we procured a rental car, we headed into town and stopped at the first place that caught our eye:  Flames.  To our Midwestern eyes, it looked like the quintessential California-style restaurant.  The food was quite tasty, too.  I wish I’d been hungry enough for one of their beautiful desserts.

We puzzled over our maps to figure out the location of our next destination, the Winchester Mystery House.  It was practically next door.  Heh.

We got tickets for both the house and behind-the-scenes tours and spent the next couple of hours walking through the house and grounds.  I took lots of pictures.  If you don’t know the story behind the house, it’s here.

As we made our leisurely way through the second part of the tour, we realized we were going to be late to the Friday night BlogHer dinner, which both of us thought started at 7.  Still, we wanted to get our hotel room first, so we checked into the Westin next door to the TechMart, freshened up a little, and headed to Alviso to catch the tail-end of the dinner.  Well, it turned out the dinner was really at 6, so when we got there at 8:15, it was all over but the cleanup.  We went down the block to Maria Elena’s and had dinner there by ourselves.

Tomorrow:  How to kill time in San Jose on a Sunday morning.

I know, I know.  What kind of blogger goes to a blogging conference and then doesn’t post about it until almost two days later?  The answer:  a jet-lagged blogger who didn’t get home until after midnight last night, then overslept and was almost late to work.

What can I say about BlogHer?  It exceeded all my expectations.  I finally met Yvonne, Toby, Amy, Elisa, Jory and Susannah – all of whose blogs I read daily.  I bought a "Writing well is the best revenge" shirt from Mrs. Kennedy, which distracted me from introducing myself to finslippy, darn it.  I met lots of other bloggers, too – they’re all in the BlogHer blogroll to the left and I’ll try to link to more specific people I met within a later post.

I attended mainly business-oriented sessions:  Advanced Tools, Blogging for Business and $$ and Sense.  I also treated myself to the How to Get Naked session and went to the early breakout session on Identity Blogging (which is the kind of blogging I do, but I didn’t know a good term for it until now).  Every session was great, but I wish I’d been able to catch some of the other ones that were held at the same time, particularly the Audio- and Videoblogging session. 

I meant to participate more actively in various sessions, but I didn’t end up saying anything until I got to $$ and Sense and spoke a little about a character blog I wrote for a client last year.  I made up for it during breaks, lunch and the cocktail reception afterwards, though.

I’m SO glad I went and I can’t wait to read through the blogroll further now that I have faces to go with more of the names.  Tomorrow I’ll discuss my BlogHer experience a little bit more and also talk about some of the other things I did in San Jose this weekend.  (If I’m really on the ball I’ll get my photos uploaded to Flickr, too.) 

Thanks again to everyone who helped make my weekend so much fun, particularly Cagey, who was a much better traveling companion than she thinks she was.