Newscoma

I went to BarCamp Nashville.

Hey, Look At The Bad Picture I Took With My Cell Phone. Yay Me!

It reminded me of the first time I went to a blogger meet-up back in the day when dinosaurs smoked cigarettes and died due to massive shoot-outs due to some random turf war scandal with Yetis (It’s true, look it up.)

Rex L. Camino no longer blogs (I suspect that he was abducted by aliens but then again, one never knew with the fabulousness that was our man Rex) but you can read that first recap of when some of us got together and became buddies.The first meet up was roughly 50 people maybe (I don’t know) and yesterday at Cadillac Ranch had 700 people sign up to get their BarCamp on.

I felt like Rue McClanahan except not nearly as sexy when I showed up as my ill-dressed self, but I enjoyed myself royally.

Those ties remain, you know. Blogging is one of those things that folks either get or they don’t, but it has been a gift to me since the first time I opened up one of these silly things and realized that it was a lot of fun. I mean, come on, you can only have Mr. Jimmy yelling at you here in Hoots so much until you need a bit of fresh air and conversations with, let’s say, people who aren’t yelling at you. (Although I do love me some Mr. Jimmy.) Blogging got me out of Hoots on occasion. Can’t beat that with a stick.

The thing about blogging is that it creates, sometimes, wonderful precious things that cannot be explained to the average bear. Some people are techie gurus, other are marketing geniuses and then there are folks like me that wander around aimlessly making unfunny jokes and hoping my fly isn’t open. Yeah, just call me RubeComa.

The highlights were plentiful. I got to meet Megan (which is something I’ve been wanting to do for years and her smile is one of the loveliest things you will ever experience. Look at the picture Kerry Woo took. Isn’t she great!) There were twitterers I finally got to meet, I got to hang around downtown Nashville, I sent a guy looking for a strip club to the now gone Chute on 8th (he was really annoying so I gave him directions when he wouldn’t leave me alone and said “nekkid” roughly 97 times in one sentence. I was drinking a beer and enough was enough. Do NOT mess with me when I’m having a cold Hopps and Barley or there might be trouble.)

I am usually gobsmacked when meeting tech folks because they are clever (and my skills are limited to just talking to people and drinking beer as mentioned above) and I can only hope I picked up a few things.  One of the nicest things to happen is that my old, dear friend Lesley was with Squirrelly and I. Her excitement was about the most fabulous thing I’ve gotten to experience in a long time.

Well done BarCamp. Well done. Your event was, once again, validating for those of us who attended. Our passions and our interests are confirmed and endorsed by events like this. I tip my hat to everyone who worked on making this happen.

Today, I met with blogger Aunt B. and we talked about being old school. I told her that I feel like in bloggerworld (which can be an odd funky place) that I felt like in the past four years, I started out as a Freshman here on the tubes. Now I’ve just graduated from Blogger World and am like a senior who just got out of high school that doesn’t know what to do next. There really isn’t an agenda here at Newscoma.  I just tell  you about crap I either like or don’t and that’s about it.

I suspect that what I will continue to do as long as it amuses me.

So for all of the folks I met this weekend, I dig you and I thank you.

The only downside is that the Squirrelly is sick. We had to stop at a motel earlier this evening on our way home and I fear it’s some sort of flu. Let’s just say that projectile anything is neither fun, sexy or endorsed her at Chez Coma.

Yeah, that flu shot was a winner she got last week. I, on the other hand being the uninsured girl wonder, am fine.

On a final note, friedApplepie’s poodle has a mohawk and there are pictures. That is yet another reason, campers, why I love hanging out with bloggers because of stuff like that. Makes me happy.