Blog

Average Jane Brings Home A Dog

Meet Toby. He's an eight-year-old Italian greyhound. I picked him up from The Animal Rescue Alliance (T.A.R.A.) yesterday after work.

He was turned over to the rescue group because his family split up due to divorce. I was hoping they'd bring some of his stuff, but all he had was his collar. Maybe he doesn't have any stuff, but you'd think they'd at least have brought some of his food and whatever clothes he wears when he goes out in the cold.

For now I'm just fostering him while we see how things go with our cats. If everything works out, I'll pay his adoption fee and keep him.

When I picked him up he was clearly upset at having been left behind and he was whining and looking for his people. Our first short car trip was from the kennel to my sister's house and Toby made it a challenge. Fortunately, all of the novelty started to wear him out and he calmed down for the trip to my house.

Obviously the first item on the agenda was to take him shopping. I went home to get the $5 PetSmart gift card I'd gotten at BlogPaws and look through the coupons I'd received. I knew there was at least one for free food.

We made a quick run through the pet store and I got him a harness, a retractable leash and a bag of food. I'm going to order him some Nulo food, partly because it's abundantly clear that he doesn't like the food I bought him and partly because he's noticeably overweight. Just look at the armpit chub in that photo.

The cats are less than thrilled. They're being pretty defensive and Velvet has already bopped him on the head once. Dr. Jones waited for him to lie down yesterday and then crept up behind to check him out.

Trillian has been making herself scarce and Xena is more interested in eating his food than dealing with him.

He slept through the night lying next to my legs and didn't wake up until I was nearly dressed. I took him with me on my daily 3.4 mile walk and he had more than enough energy to keep up.

I've been taking Toby outside pretty often because I don't know his preferred bathroom habits, but it seems that he's low-maintenance so far. I forgot to bring waste bags on our walk and I didn't end up needing one anyway.

Right now he's downstairs with a chew stick, but I'd probably better go check on him before I shower and head to work. As long as he and the cats can learn to coexist, I think he'll be a fine pet for us.

September 1, 2011
Average Jane’s Extra Day in D.C.

My original plan was to leave to fly back to Kansas City on Sunday morning so I'd have most of the afternoon and evening open to rest up. I got word on Friday night that my morning flight was canceled due to the tropical storm, so I went online and booked a Sunday afternoon flight instead.

I actually thought that one might happen, but I got the cancellation call on Sunday right after breakfast. When I checked the website there were no Sunday flights available at all. I tried to rebook online but the site must have been overwhelmed because it wasn't going through. I ended up calling and sitting on hold for at least 30 minutes before I finally rebooked my flight for 1:05 p.m. on Monday.

So that left me wandering around the hotel aimlessly for a bit. I met up with a group of bloggers and had a second breakfast (I got the hotel restaurant to make me my Shakeology shake). In the process, I learned that staying another night at the conference hotel would cost me $225 because they weren't extending the conference rate of $119 unless you'd booked in advance.

I love it when other people do my research for me, and I happened to run into someone who had planned all along to move to another hotel for the next couple of days. I took her recommendation of a $99 a night Best Western in Arlington, Virginia, and made a reservation there. It cost me a $30 cab ride to get there, but it was still a substantial savings over staying where I was.

After I said my goodbyes, I made my way to the new hotel and started reaching out to my nearby blogger buddies to see if anyone wanted to get together. Sarah and Laurie were kind enough to make plans with me to meet at an Irish-themed pub about half a mile from my hotel. I walked up to meet them in the late afternoon.

We chatted about sports, hair-metal bands, work and other important stuff over beers and deliciously evil pub food.

Tell me that isn't a beautiful Guinness.

After we left the pub, I stopped by a nearby sandwich shop to grab some dinner for later, then walked back to my hotel.

I was tempted to go swimming in the lovely pool, but tiredness got the best of me and I ended up staying in my room reading all evening. (I love the Kindle app on my iPad!)

After ten full hours of sleep, I awoke refreshed and ready for my travel day, even if it did involve re-wearing certain garments from earlier in the trip.

I think the lesson here is that it's never a bad idea to build an extra vacation day into a conference trip. Thanks to the sleep I got on Sunday and Monday nights, I'm not spending this week in an exhausted haze the way I did after BlogHer. So the storm actually did me a favor, albeit a rather expensive favor.

August 31, 2011
Average Jane Goes To BlogPaws

Now that I'm back and I've had the chance to decompress a bit from my delayed travel, it's time for me to recap the wonderful time I had at the BlogPaws conference.

I think it's safe to say that it was everything you would expect from a conference aimed at pet bloggers. The sessions were all very informative with lots of practical takeaways, and most of them would apply to any type of blogger. I took lots of notes and I intend to refer back to all of them in the coming weeks and months.

Speaking of taking notes, I should tell you about the gift my husband gave me right before I left for the airport. The night before, I'd been talking about how much I wanted an iPad and he offered to edit his current Craigslist ads for drums and other music gear to say that he'd be willing to trade for an iPad.

Well damned if he didn't find someone to take him up on it. He traded…something (he won't say what, so I suspect it was something valuable that he would otherwise have kept) plus some cash, and managed to get me a first generation iPad. Which was everything I hoped it would be, by the way. I spent all weekend downloading apps that people recommended.

So back to the conference. The attendees were welcome to bring their pets and many people took advantage of that opportunity. Predictably, were lots of dogs:

This is Lucky the Italian greyhound. More about him later.

There were also cats:

And ferrets:

And guinea pigs:

Papua Piig and his owner Angela Mitchell.

Two rescue guinea pigs. The one on the left was very pregnant. Aren't their little faces adorable?

Some people brought Flat Pets to represent their actual pets:

Other people brought stuffed animals, like capycopy here:

I was very excited to meet my fellow Paws on the Ground bloggers, Katharine McMahon of Kat and Dogs, Lisa Taron of Pet Book Lady, Caren Gittelman of Cat Chat with Cody & Caren and Dakota's Den, my awesome roommate Karen Nichols of Mousebreath, Doreen Disbro of Doggies and Stuff, Robbi Hess of Henrietta: The Dish, and Maggie Marton of Oh My Dog!. We all pitched in on Thursday to help sort and cut a massive pile of feedback forms for the sessions that the printer had failed to collate. I would have been more than willing to help out more at the conference, but it was a well-oiled machine.

Because I only blog about my pets part of the time, I wasn't quite sure where I fit in with the crowd, but everyone was so friendly and nice that it was never a concern the whole time I was there.

I was pleased to meet BZTAT, who is a talented artist, a dedicated animal rescuer, and owner of five cats. She and I were united in our disappointment that Laurie Ruettimann (a.k.a. Scrubby's mom) could not attend due to the weather. We paid tribute to her by making a version of Laurie's famous swag videos. Ours was a little long.

One of my favorite BZTAT paintings.

For me, one of the big blogger celebrities of the conference was Melanie Typaldos of Giant Hamster. She has a capybara named Garibaldi ROUS and I've been reading his blog for quite some time. Melanie wasn't the only capybara owner at the conference. Stacy Winnick of Dobby's Day was there as well. On two separate occasions, I hung out with the "capybara bloggers" and helped put together capybara puzzles. It was a lot of fun, especially when you factor in the wine.

Melanie, Stacy and the easy puzzle from the first evening.

On Saturday night we did a much harder puzzle. I kept at it until after 1:00 a.m. and finally gave up before we had all the fur on the haunch completed.

I met lots and lots of people and I know I'm leaving many of them out. I'll make a point of linking to everyone in a later post.

One thing that was notable about the attendees is that nearly everyone I spoke to volunteers for at least one animal rescue group. Thus, the opening keynote by two of the founders of Rescue Ink definitely resonated with everyone. I was impressed by their no-nonsense approach to saving animals and educating the public by whatever means necessary.

Obviously the weather was a big factor as Hurricane Irene and later Tropical Storm Irene headed up the coast. A lot of the attendees and vendors ended up leaving early, but the remaining group made the best of it.

On Saturday evening we were treated to a sneak preview of the kids' movie Spooky Buddies, which comes out on DVD just in time for Halloween. One of the highlights of the showing was the occasional barks by audience members' dogs.

Remember when I said I'd get back to Lucky? Well, here he is with his owner, Katharine. I am forever indebted to her for not only taking me on two Starbucks runs that allowed me to get the breakfast shakes that sustain me, but also for introducing me to her adorable dog.

Despite my solid cat lady status, I've been thinking a lot lately about getting a dog. However, I didn't know what kind of dog I wanted until I met Lucky.

While I was waiting to travel back home after the conference, I found myself idly looking on Petfinder to see if any of the rescues near me had an Italian greyhound up for adoption. The first one on the page was Toby, offered for adoption by the very rescue group for which I volunteer.

I emailed to ask why someone would give up an eight-year-old dog and learned that his people are divorcing. One more email and I had an appointment to go meet him tomorrow and an invitation to foster him for a while to see if he fits into our household before I make any further decisions.

With my husband fully on board, I'm looking forward to meeting Toby after work tomorrow and discovering whether he's the dog for us. I've been researching the breed and the more I read, the more suitable they sound for our lifestyle.

In closing, I was so very impressed with the conference—and not just because it may have expanded my pet universe. I'm already planning on going to BlogPaws 2012 in Salt Lake City. What do you think? Interested in coming with me?

August 30, 2011
Average Jane vs. Tropical Storm Irene

I had a wonderful time at BlogPaws this weekend in the Washington, DC area. Unfortunately, all of that frolicking in the path of a storm has come back to bite me.

I’ve had two different flights for today canceled and now I’m booked for one tomorrow afternoon instead.

I didn’t bring my computer so the BlogPaws recap and photos will have to wait.

For now I’ll be cooling my heels in DC for an extra day and hoping the storm subsides enough to let me leave tomorrow.

Just FYI, the weather where is am is just your garden-variety rain and wind. Nothing scary.

I’ll see if I can find a way to turn this into an adventure.

More when I get home!

August 28, 2011
Average Jane Is Leaving For BlogPaws

I had intended to put up a post about how incredibly naughty and terrible my cats are, but Typepad has decided that I'm not allowed to save drafts and have them again later so it's gone forever.

Thus, I'll post the rogues' gallery with some brief descriptions so my new BlogPaws buddies will be able to get a peek at our household of furry critters and leave it at that. I still have some packing to do and my flight is EARLY, so I need to get to sleep.

This is our eldest cat, Velvet. She's the household peacemaker and she gets along with cats and people alike. If she could be doing anything in the world right now, she'd be licking my hair. When we adopted her she was already an adult and she'd been at the shelter for more than seven months. If I'd realized she didn't know her name when we got her, I'd have chosen something cooler. It's too late now.

Xena is our next oldest cat. She has a very high opinion of herself and she sincerely believes she has a shot at stealing my husband away from me. Xena knows how to open the pocket door to the bathroom and she is fond of jumping into people's arms, often unexpectedly. She's a little chubby, but she gets mad if you refer to her as "tons of fun," as I often do.

Next we have Trillian, nickname "Tiny," who is sometimes referred to in our household as the "snapping tortie." She hates Xena and the feeling is mutual, so there's a lot of drama between the two of them. As her nickname suggests, Trillian is half Xena's size, but that doesn't stop her from keeping hostilities fresh on a daily basis. Notice that her left ear tip is gone; she was rounded up with a feral colony and spayed as a kitten and later adopted out when she proved to be tame.

Finally we have Dr. Jones. He's my youngest and he's, well, not too bright. He's very sweet and friendly, though, so that's good. Somehow he has failed to learn any cat manners in the nearly two years he's been alive, so he casually strolls the counters and jumps on the cupboards, never understanding why we're yelling. His latest trick is to separate the water bottle from the base of our cat waterer, spilling water all over the kitchen. I have no idea why he thinks that's a good idea.

So that's the gang I'm leaving behind when I get on a plane in the morning. I can't wait to meet everyone at BlogPaws!

August 24, 2011
Average Jane’s Big BlogHer Recap

This is my favorite photo from BlogHer. It shows a big group of women in the elevator going from one party to another on Saturday night. Look how giddy everyone seems!

Saturday was the only day I went to any official parties, but once I was committed to the idea of party-hopping, I was in for the duration. I even made it to CheeseburgHer this year, although the Aiming Low party was more my speed (read: I got a free shoulder and neck massage).

Aiming Low is also where I got this "Internets! Hell yea" temporary tattoo that I finally removed ten days later when daily showers and exercise failed to affect its adhesion one iota. Nail polish remover did the trick, though.

One thing I didn't do at the Aiming Low party was let someone write on me. That was a good move as it turns out, because it was a little risky:

I am telling all this way out of order. Let me start over and see if I can get a little more chronological up in here. I arrived on Thursday afternoon after a long travel day. This is what I saw from my hotel window, so I knew I was in for a wonderful trip:

Wouldn't you love to be there right now? I sure would.

So within a few hours I'd gathered my roommates together and we all went down by that beautiful pool to grab a drink and have something to eat. Along the way we met up with lots of other bloggy friends.

Liz Rizzo of Everyday Goddess, a.k.a. Roommate #1

Cagey from Rancid Raves, a.k.a. Roommate #2. I'm willing to bet she got a lot more photos than I did.

Goon Squad Sarah and Suebob of Red Stapler fame. (Suebob is a former BlogHer roommate of mine).

Once we'd snacked and socialized to our hearts' content, we made our way over to the exhibit hall, where we ran into more blogger buddies.

Hanging out with TW and Denise.

As you can see, we had our big bags o' swag from registration. We went back later on that evening for the sneak preview of the Expo Hall. Some of my colleagues were working there so I said hello and made my way around looking at the various sponsors. As is my custom, I entered every iPad giveaway I could find. I did not win an iPad. (However, Liz won an iPad. And a big basket of chocolate. And a fitness basket with lots of dried fruit. I'm not jealous. Really.)

I got up early on Friday morning to do a 5k and ended up walking with Liz and Kim. I downloaded the iMapMyRun app at Kim's suggestion and now I use it every time I walk and it's making me very competitive with myself.

Once the 5k start time of 6:30 a.m. Pacific rolled around, I'd already been up for a couple of hours, discovered that the hotel Starbucks opened at 5:00 a.m., and talked them into making me my Shakeology shake for breakfast. I wouldn't get a shake that actually tasted good until the next day, but at least I managed to establish that they were willing to give it a shot.

Speaking of apps (as we were a couple of paragraphs ago), I used the heck out of the BlogHer app. In fact, it's the only place where I have a record of which sessions I attended and I would love to tell you what they all were but my phone is all the way downstairs and, you know, tired.

So I spent all day in whatever sessions caught my attention, including a couple of invitation-only ones such as a Jimmy Dean cause marketing workshop where they discussed their No Kid Hungry program, and a Pepsico Sofa Summit featuring Sarah Brokaw that netted me an autographed copy of Fortytude that I'm reading right now.

I attended the Voices of the Year Community Keynote, which was wonderful as always.

On Friday evening, I had the good fortune to once again attend the Nintendo Ambassadors' party with Liz, who also managed to get a spot for Cagey. We took a boat cruise to the Hotel del Coronado and had a luau-themed party on the beach.

It was a little chilly out, but we got to sit around fire pits for most of the evening, so that was lovely.

Saturday was lather, rinse, repeat when it came to my getting up early, having Starbucks make me a breakfast shake, etc. I attended sessions all morning except when I was donating blood (which made me miss part of Nerdy Apple Bottom's session, darn it), managed to miss a flash mob at lunchtime because I was too lazy to turn around and figure out what all the commotion was about, and skipped a couple of afternoon sessions in favor of flat-on-my-back-reading time. I got back to the convention center in plenty of time to see the closing keynote, but I had to duck out a little early because I got a tweet that I'd won a prize at the Lindt Chocolate booth in the Expo Hall.

Have you ever seen so much candy? It had to have weighed 20 pounds.

Cagey and I stopped by to visit some of our Missouri blogging pals (and share chocolate) before making our way down to the poolside bar where it turned out that Ricki Lake was holding court and providing ample quantities of free margaritas.

We picked up a fourth roommate for Saturday evening. Siel of Green LA Girl decided not to drive back home that evening, so we added her to our room.

All of my roomies enjoying Ricki Lake's generosity.

The party-hopping I mentioned at the beginning of the post began shortly after that.

Liz Rizzo and Neil Kramer

The Palinode and Schmutzie

That's about the time I stopped taking photos. I don't think I took any at CheeseburgHer, despite the fact that, as predicted, I used exactly ZERO of the ten drink tickets I'd been given. After all, I had just given blood that day.

On Sunday morning I got up early (no surprise there) and got my breakfast shake. While I was hanging around on the main floor of the hotel, I checked the #blogher hashtag feed on Twitter and discovered that there was a Clever Girls Collective tech brunch taking place later that morning that had some slots open. After a couple of emails and a quick check-in with the roommates, I got us all registered.

The brunch was at a boutique hotel not far away and it had some great tech sponsors including Etymotic, PopCap and Logitech. We had really interesting discussions about the future of tech and personal computing. I was very glad I'd spotted the opportunity.

When we got back to the hotel, we had some time to kill before Cagey and I needed to head to the airport. We ran into Georgia from I Am Bossy in the hotel lobby and invited her to accompany us to the bar for a pre-flight cocktail.

At some point I checked the #blogher hashtag again and noticed that a company called Cloudflare was offering free limo rides from the hotel to the airport. We were happy to take advantage of that service in exchange for a brief sales pitch, so I got us lined up to travel to the airport in style.

Then we spent the next 5+ hours at said airport thanks to a flight delay that was never explained to my satisfaction. The less said about that the better, except that we got a chance to hang out with BlogHer co-founder Elisa Camahort Page and her husband Chris Page for a while as we waited, which was lovely.

Cagey is a great traveling companion but I'm pretty sure she was thoroughly sick of me by the time we finally boarded our flight. I will honor that by not posting the obnoxious photo I took of both of us toward the end of our extremely long wait.

We didn't get back to Kansas City until almost 2:30 a.m. on Monday, so you can kind of see why it's taken me two solid weeks to get back on track.

And that is my whole BlogHer story, minus lots of details that would have been a lot clearer if I'd written this when I should have. I'm sure I've failed to mention people and events integral to the actual story, but don't hesitate to comment with stuff I should have included.

Now, on to the next trip and conference!

August 21, 2011
Where’s Average Jane?

So there was this big event a couple of weeks ago. I took a bunch of pictures and had lots of stories to go with those pictures, and then somehow I just didn't write most of those stories down and illustrate them with the pictures. And then two weeks went by.

I can't even really tell you why I haven't managed to write my posts except that I've been so very tired. Even at the conference I spent long stretches of time lying on the bed in my room reading my book when I ran out of energy and needed time to recharge.

I don't know why I'm so exhausted all the time. My doctor kept chalking it up to the anemia…that I apparently no longer have. I'm still managing to get in a pretty good amount of exercise and keep my calendar relatively full, but I would eagerly take a nap at any given time these days. If they had a room at my office designated for napping I would use it every afternoon.

I don't even feel lazy for having neglected my blog because I'm just so tired. I'm going to go ahead and write one big BlogHer post tonight just to get it done and clear the way for other things (such as my trip to BlogPaws this coming week). But I'd really rather go lie down.

But enough of the whinefest. I'm sure this'll all get solved eventually, but for now I have to power through my work, get one more conference under my belt and then I'll have the time to pester my doctor for more useful answers. Perhaps after a nap.

August 21, 2011
BlogHer Possibly Saves Average Jane’s Life

I'm going to be writing a lot of posts about my BlogHer 2011 experience over the coming week or so, but this is the one that's topmost in my thoughts right now.

It all started with a tweet I saw from Queen of Spain about a blood drive at the conference. I've been an enthusiastic blood donor since college, so I was happy to sign up even though I've been turned down a few times recently due to low hemoglobin. However, my last blood test at the doctor's office showed normal iron levels, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

Well, I almost got turned down, but not due to anemia. Instead, it was because my blood pressure was sky-high.

Now, I've always had blood pressure on the low side of normal. If I stood up too fast in yoga class, I'd often get dizzy. High blood pressure is definitely something new. The tech took my blood pressure twice and I squeaked down into the acceptable range the second time, but she thought it was concerning enough that she wrote down both readings so I could share them with my doctor when I got home.

I then donated blood without incident and got the phlebotomist to take a picture of me and my blood so I could share it on my blog and Twitter, because otherwise what kind of blogger would I be?

I had a pretty good idea that the sudden change in blood pressure was related to one of my medications. It didn't take much research to figure out which one, so I left a message for my doctor, who had her nurse call and tell me to stop taking that one (duh).

I'm actually rather irritated at her for prescribing it in the first place and also irritated at myself for not being a more proactive healthcare consumer when I started taking it. It really wasn't particularly appropriate for the condition for which it was prescribed and it's apparently well known for causing hypertension. Thanks, doc.

So now I'm assuming that my blood pressure will go back to normal. I've been stepping up my exercise and changing my diet quite a bit, so those things alone should help, especially now that I'm not being poisoned by that stupid drug.

I'm very inspired of late to take charge of my health and, ideally, get off most or all of the various medications I'm taking. It may not be a quick process, but it's worth starting immediately. I'd love to get to a point where I feel like a fully healthy person instead of a walking collection of symptoms.

So my post title may be a little hyperbolic, but I'm glad I got the heads-up that something was wrong. I'll talk about the less life-or-death aspects of BlogHer in the rest of my upcoming posts.

August 8, 2011
10 Basic Things To Know About Average Jane
Since I'm leaving for BlogHer at the crack o' dawn tomorrow and I won't be blogging again until I get back, I figured I'd leave you with a post listing a few things about me, in case you happen to meet me and check out my blog during the conference.
1. I'm kind of a crazy cat lady. I'll just get that out there. I have four cats (Xena, Velvet, Trillian and Dr. Jones) and I volunteer for an animal rescue group in my spare time. It's safe to say that all my clothes have cat hair on them. In the early days of my blog I tried not to write about cats so much, but these days I'm just owning it.
2. I sometimes sing in rock bands, but I'm on a break. I'm a big hard rock fan and I love singing, but the combination of a really busy schedule and worsening asthma have sidelined me, at least for now. My husband is also a musician—he's a drummer and a recording engineer.
3. Early to bed, early to rise, makes Average Jane kind of a party pooper. Sorry, I can't help it. I get up at 6:00 a.m. almost every day to go walking for an hour and then I'm ready to turn in by 9:30 p.m. I'm going to try to nap my way to a more late-night-friendly schedule for BlogHer, but we're talking about a two-hour time zone shift. It's too bad I don't drink caffeine anymore.
4. At big parties, I get a little wallflowery. However, that doesn't mean I don't want to talk to you. It may just mean that I should probably retreat to the hallway and talk to you there.
5. I am trying to get more fit right now. Hence, the hour-long walks in the mornings. I am also a big fan of yoga, I'm starting to cut way down on meat consumption, and I'm pretty sure most of the weight I've lost in the past few months is from having Shakeology shakes for breakfast every morning. If you see me at Starbucks trying to convince the barista to make me a blended latte with my own shake power in it, that's what's going on.
6. There is no way I'm using 10 drink tickets at a two-day conference. See #5. Also, ask around and you may hear a few stories about how I learned the hard way that it's a good idea to take it easy on the partying at BlogHer.
7. I am not a mom blogger. That's because I'm not a mom, in case you were wondering. I'm your standard-issue Gen Xer with a career, a mortgage, no kids and the aforementioned cats.
8. I am a big fan of mom bloggers. Some of my best friends are mom bloggers (or non-blogging moms, for that matter) and I read a LOT of mom blogs. Just so you know.
9. Fashion is not my strong suit. All you have to do is meet me to figure that out. That said, I am putting in a concerted effort to stop exclusively wearing jeans, t-shirts and sneakers. However, I'll probably wear my Average Jane t-shirt on my flight tomorrow because it's always a nice ice-breaker when I get to the hotel.
10. When it comes to interpersonal online drama, I am Switzerland. No matter what's going on, I will not get involved in any online feuds. I am inevitably friends with people on both sides of the altercation and while I may have an opinion about each person's degree of responsibility, I will never side with one person over another.
That ought to do it. Have a lovely weekend, feel free to follow my Twitter stream if all of the BlogHer chat won't drive you around the bend, and I'll be back with regular posts next week.
August 3, 2011
Average Jane, BlogHer Veteran
This year will be my seventh BlogHer Conference. That's 7. VII. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

Damn.

The good thing about having been to so many is that I am not stressed about it in any way. I'm bringing clothes I already had, with one exception that I purchased last weekend while shopping in Eureka Springs:

I am definitely bringing the most comfortable shoes I own, no matter how un-cute they might be. Even the sandals I'm packing to wear with this dress are low-heeled.

My only new tech goodie is this iPhone case from Uncommon. It looks much better in person, but my best camera *is* my phone, so I had to go with Photobooth to get this shot.

Uncommon offered me a free custom iPhone case to take to the conference and of course I said yes. I used my black and white blog design, although they can print any full-color image as well. If you'd like a 20% discount for a case of your own, find me at the conference or email me and I'll give you a card or email you a code.

Here's the photo without cropping so you can see what I look like now. I've changed my hair a lot since last year and I'm noticing that it seems to have made me invisible to people who should know me socially.

By the way, I am not getting my hair highlighted between now and the conference, so when we meet in person I'd appreciate it if you'd avert your eyes from the frizzy grey hairs leaping out of my part.

This year I'm rooming with Cagey and Liz, and my only extra-conference plan for the weekend is to visit the San Diego Zoo on Sunday with Susan Getgood before I fly home.

Pro conference tips? Okay, here are a few:
- Don't bring your laptop. You might think you'll need it, but you'll thank me for saving you from hauling it around various airports.
- Bring an extra bag. Last year I rolled up a duffel bag and packed it into my suitcase so I'd have another option for transporting swag. It saved me from having to ship anything and since I always fly Southwest, I didn't have to pay any extra for checking two bags on the way back.
- Remember what I said earlier about comfortable shoes? I wasn't kidding. Bring them. Wear them.
- Nobody really cares what you're wearing. Sure, it's fun to dress up for evening events but in most cases it doesn't make a substantial difference.
- You have business cards, right? Okay, good.
So that's all I have. I can't wait to go to the conference, reconnect with the people I've met before, meet new people and generally soak in the bloggerness of the whole thing. Will I see you there?
August 2, 2011