TequilaCon 2008

For those of you who may not have had the patience or stamina to read my TequilaCon recaps… well here’s a little video I mixed up to remember the occasion.  Unlike my posts… I kept the action to 120 Seconds…

So that I think is as comprehensive as I can get.

Thanks to everyone for the good drinks, great time, and best memories.

The moment that we have anticipated for months had finally come.  Poppy and I had returned from our historic jaunt through the city, and upon our return we took a quick catnap and then I showered and started to get ready.  So for all of you who always complain about how long women take… for the record… I was the princess who held us up by suddenly having a NEED to shave… and running downstairs for cheap two bladed razors… and literally using all three of them to get the job done without knicking an artery.  Before I knew it… it was 6:30pm and we were late!

Rushing downstairs we jumped into the first cab we saw.  Now thus far, with the exception of actually getting a cab off the street, we had a good experience with this mode of transportation in Philly.  Until this driver that is.  I have absolutely no doubt that this guy was a New York transplant… accelerating… braking… accelerating… screeching tires… braking… accelerating… and you get the idea.  I had serious doubts he was going the right way… and those doubts were verified when he went over and then under the Expressway twice.  Luckily though… we arrived in once piece.  When we walked up we found Britt, Karl, and Hellohahanarf making out on the wheelchair ramp.  Once I made out a little myself, we all went inside and ascended into the loft.

Now to be honest… I was kind of stunned into silence.  I was a bit nerve wracked and distracted by all the blinking lights and sounds.  Then, suddenly, there was a squeal.  The squeal came from none other than Lisa from Clusterfook.  Now, what I don’t think a lot of people realize, is that I have been reading Lisa for a long time.  I read Lisa when she was The Rock Bitch.  Every blogger can point to who they consider as blogging pioneers (their first reads) that inspired them and helped them evolve into the blogger they are today, whether it be writing style or template.  Lisa was one of those pioneers for me.  Both her no nonsense style and her kick ass template are things I tend to think I carried over… especially the sunglasses.

One of the groups of people that rarely get spoken about are the Blogger’s Spouses.  I myself am very lucky, because as you should all know my Poppy is a blogger herself.  I don’t know what it’s like to try to explain the phenomenon to someone I should be sleeping next to while I read blogs instead.  Now I have to be honest, Lisa’s Dude was the second Blogger’s Spouse I met (Geeky Tai-tai‘s Mike was the first)… and he proved that they are not only as unique as their spouses, but they are also just as awesome.  I highly doubt he knows anything about RSS Feeds, Flickr, or Podcasts.  I don’t think he worries about bandwidth usage, keyword searches, or trolling commenter’s.  Irregardless, Dude seemed to fit right in with the rest of us.  He is definitely one righteous Dude.

As I was talking with Lisa, Poppy came over with my lanyard and said with an ear to ear grin, “Look what I got for you!  Guess who gave it to me?” I looked up (literally) and there coming towards me, in classic Mr. Roboto form, was none other than Dave from Blogography.  Now I know right now there are both female and male bloggers swooning and thinking, Oh that Dave from Blogography, what a tall cool glass of water he is! Well allow me to assure all of you that he is in fact NOT a glass of water.  Dave is in fact a YARD GLASS of ultra-cool water.  Remember that whole height thing I had going with Karl (I told you it would play a role)?  Yeah, Dave was totally way taller than I thought… which now in hindsight makes sense since ‘Lil Dave is about what, three apples high?  Well Big Dave is at least 369 apples high.  Other than that, I can honestly say, he is just as awesome in person as he is on his blog.  We spoke about a bunch of things including New York, the Iron Man movie, and that when he comes into town he wants to do a Cereal Wednesday.  The only thing I didn’t bring up to the man responsible for 29% of my weekly wardrobe was when The Artificial Duck Store was re-opening so I can get the Summer 2008 collection.  To be honest, I’m not worried.  In Dave I trust… and not just because he has a really awesome name.

So by now, I was quite the thirsty blogger.  My choice of drink for the night was a salted Margarita.  Poppy got the munchies, and after being inspired by seeing what Dave and Avitable had ordered, she went with the corn dogs and the tater tots.  Normally, I try not to eat greasy food when I drink… but those tater tots… they were calling me by name… Dawg… Dawg… eat us Dawg… so I did.  While I was popping them down my gullet, Jenny from Run Jen Run came over and introduced herself.  In case you didn’t know, Jenny is one of the few other bloggers I know with an orange blog, so you know we hit it off talking about tater tots, expired passports, and overcoming the challenges of organizing such an event.  She really did a great job pulling it all together, and while she is always quick to point out that she had help from Dave, Vahid, and Dustin… she is the driving force behind TequilaCon… and for that I whole heartedly thank her.

So while the drinks were great, the tater tots were awesome, just what would TequilaCon be without meeting bloggers you otherwise may never get the chance to meet?  So I got to meet Vahid by the bar.  Apparently he was taking a break from inking bloggers for a much needed beverages.  I also got to meet the awesome MetalMom and her blogger spouse!  I honestly had no idea she was going to be there… so that was a very pleasant surprise.  Mr. Shiny came over and introduced himself to me.  I have to be honest, I’ve only started reading him since his appearance on a few of the blogger radio shows.  He apparently had been following me on Twitter, but I didn’t realize he was a real person until either the radio shows or a reply on Twitter… I’m not sure.  Still, he is a very cool guy to hang with and I was glad to meet him.  Another blogger I got to meet was GreenEyezz, who is a relatively new read for me.  We talked about a few things, one of them being RSS Feeds, but luckily I didn’t throw her under the bus and at Karl because she is currently using truncated feeds.  Hey, she’s really nice!  If she wants to truncate her feeds, then it’s okay with me.  I was able to pull Delmer away from his beer for a quick picture.  Oh, and if your wondering, Delmer is bigger than Dave… but not by much.  Of this, I assure you… or at least my Margaritas did.  I think at this point, Britt was gathering a posse for a make out session outside… so out I went.

So there I am, outside making out with Britt, Bre, Geeky Tai-tai, Finn, and Shelli.  We’re talking about, of all things, cereal.  Suddenly, my phone rings.  It’s my Poppy.  I answer it and she says, ”Delmer told me you went to go outside to make out with some girls.  Where are you?” So I said, “I’m outside smoking.  Come outside and you can make out too!” So Poppy came out, and we’re all standing there laughing over the misinterpreted code.  Suddenly, Britt grabs my Poppy and kisses her firmly on the cheek!  For those of you who don’t know… there is a standing rule when it comes to the Poppy.  No touching the Poppy.  This also means NO KISSING THE POPPY (unless you’re Dawg)!  So yes… if kissing on the cheek counts… there really was making out going on outside when everyone was “making out”.  Aren’t you all glad I had my camera now?

Of course, kissing the Poppy was not enough.  The next thing I knew, Britt was telling some girl how she just wants to, “Borrow your boyfriend for a picture!  Don’t worry, I’m married, I don’t want to take him home!” This was how we met Duff.  Yes, Bre and Britt got hugged up on by Duff with the straw cowboy hat.  I have to be honest, I was impressed that his girlfriend let him do it.  This is one more example of the power of Britt.  It compels you.  There was also some drunk dialing going on, and Britt was on the phone with both Jester and Amy D who were unable to attend.  Well… at least they got to live vicariously!  I also have to tell you, Shelli and Finn are party animals too!  Hugging up on Q The Bouncer and trying to explain to drunk non-bloggers what blogging is while being a little tipsy themselves.  The blogosphere could ask for no better ambassadors to the offliners.

Back inside, Britt and Hilly kept the hugging up going on by molesting Dave!  Right now… half the blogosphere is jealous of Dave… and the other half jealous of Hilly and Britt.  Do you guys see what you missed by not coming!  There was a lot more dancing, drinking, and a good time for all.  There was too much for me to go into further detail since I’ve already been writing this post now for 3 hours, which is what I was afraid of.  Yet, there is one more tale I must tell…

So that night… while I was laying in my hotel room bed like Ralphy from a Christmas Story the night he got his rifle… I felt a poke.  “Tell me a story,” whispered my Poppy.

“A story?  Like a bedtime story?  Are you kidding me?  I’m basking in the glow of blogger greatness and you want a story?” I asked, astounded at this request.

“If you don’t tell me a story, I’m going to puke all over you,” she replied… and then as if to prove it… she burped. 

So, I did what I had to do to avoid being slimed.  “Okay, there were these three bloggers…”

“No!” she shouted (quite loudly I might add), “I want a real story!” *POKE* *POKE* “Tell me a story!”

“Okay, quit the poking.  There were these three bears… and they happened to have blogs…”

“I wuv this story…”

And that’s all I remember because at that point, I’m pretty sure I fell asleep.  I didn’t wake up in a pool of vomit… so it must have been a good story.

An epic unto itself.

Pictures are reportedly worth a thousand words.  Well I think the photos from my Flickr set and the TequilaCon Flickr Group are worth a little more… but you can be the judge.  Photos for this post were culled from Avitable’s Flickr Set and Poppy’s Flickr Set. 

“The liturgy, like the feast, exists not to educate but to seduce people into participating in common activity of the highest order, where one is freed to learn things which cannot be taught.”
-Aidan Kavanagh

Leaving the AvitaSuite we moved down to the lobby to see what kind of food offerings the hotel we were in had.  As it turned out, they had a nice restaurant who’s name completely escapes me.  Had I remembered, I might have brought my camera to take a picture of the sign.  Instead my two brain cells were spinning from my previous tequila shots that were courtesy of Hellohahanarf.  So, through the miracle that is Twitter and a cellphone, we were actually enlarging our group with fellow bloggers from another hotel who were on their way over.  The restaurant readied our own private little room Which we converged on immediately like a pack of angry raptors.

Once inside though, it seemed as if a line had been drawn down the middle of the table.  On one end was Poppy, myself, Hellohahanarf, and Avitable at the head.  The other end had Karl, his roommates Jan and Christine, with Britt at the other head.  Hilly maintained a Switzerland like stance and sat in the middle… which in hindsight was really pretty prophetic as you’ll come to find out.

So as we sat there and broke bread waiting for the other group to arrive, conversation was pretty light and airy.  We talked about sports, where we came from, and of course we talked about blogging.  There is something extremely liberating about being able to sit around a table with people that you literally met less than an hour ago, feel like you’ve known them for a long time, and be able to talk about something that you actually really never TALK to anyone, rather than type, about.  Part of the conversation did revolve around how we were a bit spread out.  Then it suddenly happened… Avitable broke ranks and moved down to the other end of the table.  While I don’t think its a big deal… it did make me think that perhaps I hadn’t put on enough deodorant that morning.

Finally, the door to the room swung open and in walked Shelli, Finn, Libragirl, and Geeky Tai-Tai with her husband Mike.  Unbeknownst to us, they had literally walked 1.4 miles to the hotel, and were pretty dehydrated.  So once we got everyone a round of water, we were able to move forward with the meal in a typical feast fashion.  A very LOUD feast.

There was quite a bit of conversation at both ends of the table as everyone finally got to meet people they had been communicating with for months, and in some cases years, for the first time face to face.  The conversations, in typical blogger fashion, spilled out into the blogosphere through Twitter.  Some of the conversation happened to spill through the open doorway for the waitress and the rest of the patrons to hear… of particular note was the conversation about fisting.  Yeah… we needed to get fed before we got asked to leave.  Imagine being kicked out of a restaurant in the City of Brotherly Love for talking about acts of loving?  Well… acts of lovin’ for someone… somewhere.

The dinner plates arrived… everything from fillet mignon to the live lobster formerly known as Stan landed on our table.  More importantly, the drinks flowed quite heavily.  In an odd biblical parody, Hilly in the middle of the table, surrounded by 12 other bloggers (and one blogger spouse) gave thanks to good sweet Baby Hey-soos for providing us with Lemon Drops.  Of course… the waitress passed by the open door during this as well.  They probably thought we were an alcoholic sex cult at this point. 

After dinner, I was enjoying this delightful little Blue Crab Margarita when my phone rang.  It was Delmer who had just made it to his hotel.  He was running a bit late since he also had some issues, but I told him we would probably be in the bar since dinner itself was wrapping up.  Of course… I think I mentioned it to Poppy that Delmer was coming over, or maybe not… but then got involved in another conversation that was a loud one… and then another… and yet another.

Suddenly, the door flung open yet again.  A guy roughly 10 feet tall strode in, pointed at me, and called me by my real name.  My first thought… Shit!  Someone told the sheriff I was in Pennsylvania! Unfortunately… due to the fact I have not paid my yearly garbage bill yet on my Pennsylvania property… there is apparently an arrest warrant out for me up north.  Ooops.  My second thought… Fuck!  Someone hit my truck in the parking garage! Considering how tight and crappy it was… a total possibility.  My third thought… Damn!  They’re gonna try to pin all this fisting and praying over Lemon Drops ruckus on me!  I’m the fucking quiet one! Granted, I doubt I was all quiet… but just in case I was poised to get up, go to Hilly, kiss her once on each cheek, and call her Sensei.

Yet, while I’m thinking all this, he starts calling Britt and Avitable by name as well.  Then, it clicked just as he himself said, “I’m Delmer.” So of course I chimed in, “Hey everybody, this is Delmer!” Yeah… as my sweetie would say… I’m smaht.  Of course, I’m quite a bit smahter than our waitress Christine.  She apparently didn’t understand that we wanted separate checks… and only came in with two.  Luckily hours of trying to do math while slightly intoxed was resolved thanks to Geeky Tai-tai‘s husband Mike who covered the bill until we could figure it all out and send them the money for our meals.  Now THAT is a true sign of blogger trust… and he isn’t even a blogger!

So with dinner done and over with… we all moved out to the bar.  There were tequila shots, margaritas, Jameson and ginger ales, tequila sunrises, and diet coke all around.  The conversations continued, and I had an interesting conversation with Delmer about the nature of blogging and the fall of corporate mongering Starbucks.  I believe he sold his stock in them today.  Of course… a bunch of us bloggers were making trips outside to smoke… and occasionally dragging non-puffing bloggers with us.

Slowly the night wrapped up… I think maybe around 2:00am so Bag O’Bones should have been up and plotting her next sandstorm by then.  Poppy headed up to the room as I headed outside where I met with Karl who had decided to also have a pre-bed smokie treat.  We spoke about how great it was to finally meet the people we have read and gotten to know through the blogosphere, and how if this night was an indicator… then TequilaCon was going to be a real blast. 

So I finished my smoke, and said goodnight to Karl.  I left him standing in front of The Sheraton sign… and little did I know I would find him in the same spot first thing the next morning…

Pictures are reportedly worth a thousand words.  Well I think the photos from my Flickr set and the TequilaCon Flickr Group are worth a little more… but you can be the judge.  Photos for this post were culled from Karl’s Flickr Set and Poppy’s Flickr Set.