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May 29, 2004

RMB Report

I attended the very first Rocky Mountain Blogger Bash back in 2002, and had a fine time doing so. But last night's Rocky Mountain Blogger Bash 3.0 was everything Walter was promising and more. The turnout was incredible, giving me the opportunity to finally put some names with faces.

The evening began when Amanda and I picked up Gary Farber of the estimable Amygdala for dinner. As neither of us visits Denver on a regular basis, we took a little time to decide on a place for dinner, but settled on The Cheesecake Factory. A nice enough place, although loud and with a menu packed with ads, which I've never before seen. Nonetheless, we were able to have some good conversation over dinner, particularly as dinner took its sweet time arriving. Sadly, we didn't have time to sample any of the roughly 50 varieties of cheesecake they offered, as we were already late for the Bash.

We found the Press Club without difficulty, a small building near (or possibly in) Denver's infamous LoDo (Lower Downtown). It seemed a nice enough place, although the walls ensured that conversation quickly turned to cacophony, forcing me to lean in and ask people to repeat themselves on a disturbingly regular basis. As I'm not the most gregarious of individuals, I tended to lay back and observe rather than leap in and introduce myself, although I still managed to meet many bloggers.

The list of bloggers I met includes Charles Sakai of Bloodthirsty Warmonger, Walter of Walter in Denver, John Orr of Coyote Gulch, Ed Driscoll of EdDriscoll.com, Stephen Wheeler of Off In The Tall Weeds, Jed Baer of Freedom Sight, Andy of the World Wide Rant, Jeralyn Merritt of TalkLeft, Tim Berglund of Tim Berglund dot com, Cory of Jimspeak (don't ask), Darren of Colorado Conservative, the estimable Zombyboy of ResurrectionSong whose real name I've already managed to forget, Jeff Goldstein of protein wisdom, and Stephen Green of Vodkapundit. The best thing about meeting them all was that they all struck me as nice people, so it was simply a fun time. It's important to remember that, while we often disagree on a number of subjects, we can still get together and talk without it degenerating into silly partisan ranting. I saw Andy, a somewhat militant right-wing atheist, chatting amiable with Jeralyn, a lefty lawyer, and Tim, a blogger who spends a bit of time on theology. Rodney King would have been proud.

All kidding aside, I enjoyed some fascinating chats with the various bloggers, and my only regret was that I failed to circulate enough to meet all of my fellow bloggers. In particular I was hoping to meet Anne Zook of Peevish..., but she apparently didn't make it. To those I missed, I hope to catch you at the next one, which I hope will be sooner rather than later.

As an aside, the bloggers I missed were: The Speculist, Rover Pundit, Publicola, Whomping Willow, TBOTCOTW, Dorkafork, Final Protective Fire, Tahoe Web Diary, and Confessions of a Flabby Colosotan Ironman.