Shots Across The Bow

And a Good Time was Had By All

First, I'd like to thank everyone who came to the Blogfest and made it a smashing success. We'll be doing another one soon, probably in early March. Calhoun's worked pretty well, but if anybody has other ideas, particularly of places where the kids can run around a bit more, let me know. The party started at 5 and the last folks left at about 9:20PM, so we had a good run.

A lot of the folks there have already blogged on it.

• Lissa Kay
• Perry Nelson
• Cathy has posted pictures
• Doug
• Michael Silence
• R. Neal
• Glenn Reynolds
• Dr. Helen
• Barry
• Say Uncle
• CE Petro
• Mike Faulk
• Katie Allison Granju
• Jon Hickman

Present but not blogging were Les Jones and his wife Melissa, and Mark Steel.

I hope I didn't leave anybody out, or miss meeting anybody. If I did, just leave a comment and I'll fix it.

A few observations:

• I wasn't surprised by the lack of conflict, as so many of the other bloggers were. It seems that most bloggers are smart enough to realize that the online persona is in essence an adolescent one. Even those of us who blog under our own names feel like we have some small curtain of anonymity, and that allows us to go farther than we would in real life. And to a certain extent, we all exaggerate our positions to play to our readership. But when we all get together in the real world, it's much easier to remember that the person on the other side is an actual person, and we behave accordingly. In fact, I'm perfectly certain that Mr. R Neal and I could debate nearly any political issue in person without a resulting fist fight simply because we've done it before at other blog fests. In fact, that was one of the reasons I wanted to get these things started up again; to remind everybody that we are all real people behind the pixels, in hopes of restoring some small bit of civility in the blogosphere. (Can you hear Kumbaya playing in the background?*grin*)
  
• It seems that East Tennessee produces more bloggers and better bloggers than any other region in the nation, which is really surprising. But at this one meeting, we had the Instapundit and R. Neal, two heavyweights in the blogosphere, and several light heavyweights as well, including Say Uncle and Dr Helen.
  
• Michael Silence's daughter is simply adorable. We watched Barney together, and Elmo.
  
• Katie Allison Granju is glowing. That's the only word that fits. No, Katie, you don't look pudgy and short You look radiant.
  
• After reading my post on my losses at poker, Uncle spent a considerable amount of time trying to convince me to play in a couple of home games. I'm not really sure how to take that...*grin*
  
• Having the blogfest out west seems to increase attendance, but it also changes the mix. We had more of a family atmosphere at this one.
  
• Barry is stumping for a future blogfest to be held at Lazer Quest. I'm worried. I don't know who he wants to shoot.
  
• Lissa took a truly flattering picture of me with my mouth full, and no, I won't link to it. Find it yourself! Of course, since my mouth is always either open or full, it probably wasn't her fault.
  

I really enjoyed getting to meet all the new people at this bash, and reconnecting with some old faces who couldn't make the last few. Hopefully, we'll keep this thing growing. And on that note, I have a question for the brigade.

How many of you are interested in participating in charity events as a group? Things like the CANstruction competition they used to hold, or the cardboard sled race in Gatlinburg? If we have enough interest, I'd like to see us get involved in some things like that. Send me an e-mail and let me know.